


summer sun.

by warfare



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Blow Jobs, First Time, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-22
Updated: 2015-09-22
Packaged: 2018-04-20 11:58:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 29,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4786526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warfare/pseuds/warfare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kenma thinks about it and realizes, feeling complicated, half nauseous and half relieved: volleyball isn't the only thing that he's kind of fallen in love with.</p><p> </p>
            </blockquote>





	1. my heart has been my teacher and i've learned quite a lot;

**Author's Note:**

> This started as "four firsts Hinata doesn't know he gave Kenma and one he necessarily found out about" and spiraled, as you can see, wildly out of control. I wrote it all as a one-shot but broke it up into three chapters just to give people some ability to start and stop it; it's complete.
> 
> Thank you so much to my beta/sisterfriend Cbran/@brampersandon, who signed on when I had three thousand words and had no idea what she was getting into and also has never watched a single episode of Haikyuu!! and was very surprised to learn that Kageyama exists.
> 
> ** FROM FAR IN THE FUTURE this was written during the Shiratorizawa/Karasuno match - it follows canon at that point, at which point I'm sure it diverges. **
> 
> Yes, I wrote 23,000 words of Kozume Kenma's emotional education and then 6,000 words of fucking, it's the BL mangaka way.

Kenma has always avoided texting on trains. He knows that no one would mind, that no one could hear it over the rattling of the tracks and the occasional roaring of tunnel air and even the basic human noise that comes of a number of people squeezed in together. Still, there's something about it that makes him feel like it's eye-catching, even though he knows well enough that literally everyone else does it, and he stands out more by not - maybe it's the ever-present signs insisting on the use of manner mode, or maybe it's the glares everyone shoots the inevitable asshole who talks on his phone in spite of them, or maybe it's just the memory of how loud vibration sounds when it goes off during a test, or a movie, or when he's trying to go to sleep.

Anyway, it’s troublesome and it makes him worry, and as a general rule Kenma avoids both of those things - save, he supposes, Kuro. It's been a non-issue up to this point because the only people who text him anyway are Kuro and his mother and occasionally Lev; it's rare for him to ride a train without Kuro, his mother expects a slow response, and anyway it's better not to give Lev too much attention or he'll begin to raise his expectations. His other teammates know well enough that the fastest way to talk to him is in person, and they tend to keep their messages short and to the point and rarely expect them to turn into a conversation.

That's changed since he's started talking to Shouyou. At first he thinks it's got nothing to do with him. That it's the speed and the volume and the energy and the tone of the texts. That something about Shouyou can't be ignored. That he demands to be replied to.

Even though he’s the type of person who enjoys teasing his friends, Kuro has a degree of emotional maturity that usually precludes intentionally picking at people’s legitimate sensitivities; he’ll smirk and he’ll tease but he’d never do anything to call attention to his friend in a way Kenma couldn’t stand. The difference, Kenma occasionally thinks with an eyeroll, between a pain and a bully, although he knows that’s a gross oversimplification, as well as probably unfair. At any rate, his friend has traditionally been good about ignoring the buzz of a message coming from Kenma's bag, but lately the more that Kenma responds to the sound, fishes through his belongings and reads through the messages thoughtfully and sends replies promptly as if it's the most natural thing, the more he shifts away from embarrassment and awkwardness and toward the norm, Kuro has readjusted as well. He’s taken to biting around a smile, tilting his gaze in a way Kenma knows he does specifically because he’s been told point-blank that it's obnoxious.

“That shorty from Karasuno has a lot to say for a Wednesday morning,” he drawls languidly as Kenma’s phone begins vibrating almost immediately after he clicks the screen off from his last reply, before he can even manage to shove it back into his pocket. Kenma can hear his best friend’s grin even before he slips his gaze up impassively, shaking his hair back and out of his face.

“Shouyou’s talking about this standing race he and that first-year setter,” Kageyama-kun, he vaguely recalls, “have. Something about arriving in the gymnasium first.” He shrugs. Things like racing and competition seem like a lot of work to him, more work than he’d be interested in. He supposes, however, that Kageyama-kun seems unexpectedly like that kind of type - even though at first glance he’d given off a kind of stoic, imperious aura, that hadn’t lasted past the first few interactions with the rest of Karasuno that Kenma’d observed. People like that, Kenma thinks, get too serious about things when other people attach weight to them, even things that probably don’t actually matter all that much. Kageyama-kun is probably exactly the type to get caught up in someone like Shouyou’s pace.

“Ah, that genius, right? The one who serves it right to shorty.” Kuro’s tone indicates a question, but his expression doesn’t change, settled stubbornly into a fond smile Kenma recognizes as one he makes when he figures he knows what’s _really_ going on, but he’s not going to let on until you’re willing to tell him what’s up, because he’s such a kind person, really. “They’re racing, huh? What’s with that, is it some kind of weird training?” Kenma shrugs, turning up to fully meet his friend’s gaze.

“I don’t think it’s part of their menu or anything, and as far as I can tell there’s no benefit to winning. It’s just something they do.” With that, he slips his gaze back to his phone, finger dancing across the screen to compose his reply. “I guess Shouyou’s into it, though.”

Kuro snorts. “I get the impression there isn’t much that _doesn’t_ get that guy pumped up.”

Kenma knows by all accounts that he should sigh at that, really, because it’s all sort of pointless and silly, but somehow, inexplicably, he feels the corners of his mouth turning up ever-so-slightly. “Even you can tell something like that, huh?” His friend laughs and shoves Kenma’s shoulder with his own, almost too gently, like you’d nudge a sleeping cat with your foot.

“What's with that 'even you,' huh? Some people don’t take your particular skillset to figure out, you know? I feel like anyone could tell that. When we introduce him to Lev, _Lev’ll_ be able to tell that.” Kuro yawns and rolls his shoulders back, settling further into his seat. “Speaking of our newest member, I could swear I heard him complaining about how unresponsive you are to texts - something you’re working on?” Kenma leans forward a bit, resting his elbows on his knees, putting subtle distance between the two of them, feeling defensive.

“You know that type of guy. If you give him an inch he’ll take a mile. You let him play one round of a game, and next thing you know he’s saving over your files and telling you he’s a natural at it.” For example. Hypothetically. “Better not to let him think I'll respond too quickly." Or at all.

"You barely respond to _me_." Kenma shifts his shoulders, turning slightly to meet his best friend's teasing, expression neutral.

"Did you have something you needed right now?" This time Kuro jostles his knee against Kenma's, less gentle than before.

"That's not the point and you know it." The borders of his sigh hint quietly at the laugh he's swallowed down. Kenma doesn’t have a reply, and Kuro doesn’t particularly need one; they're quiet until almost the end of their ride to school, silence only punctuated by the occasional buzzing of Kenma's phone. Kenma opens an iPhone game that he’s been playing for the last couple of weeks - Shouyou’s been so chatty since they lost at their qualifying matches that it’s almost impossible to play anything that requires any real level of concentration - and pokes at it, unable to commit. Kuro’s fiddling half-heartedly with a college entrance exam prep app on his own phone, comfortably silent.

As always, ultimately it's Kuro who breaks the quiet, intoning, "Looking forward to their visit, then?" as Kenma's phone lights up again with another message notification. Kenma shrugs, staring at his still-uncomposed reply.

"I think he's excited? I mean, even when one of us brings it up, he mostly just talks about volleyball and the Skytree, to be honest..." His phone vibrates again in his hand, as if in agreement. Yeah, Shouyou seems to be echoing from up in Miyagi prefecture. Tokyo Skytree is awesome, probably!!

"Not the shorty, Kenma." His friend's tone indicates that he thinks that for such a smart guy, Kenma can be surprisingly dense. The scenery outside melts into the neighborhood around Nekoma High, warning that their stop is next; they both stand automatically, without conferring, and Kuroo reaches up and grabs Kenma's bag from the rack above their heads, passing it quietly to him with a slight grin. Morning practice is early and they've missed the rush, so they're able to move to the train door without pushing. It opens, and Kenma feels a gust of cool morning air as Kuro steps onto the platform, turning to face him. Kuro's not done with his thought, Kenma realizes suddenly, looking at the slant to his friend's expression, and wonders what more there is to say. "It's volleyball and it's that guy. Of course he's excited. I'm talking about you."

The morning sun is gentle on his face. Kenma feels warm at the question, which catches him off-guard. Is he excited? It seems impossible - he isn't any good at social interaction and he avoids it wherever he can, which is why it's so puzzling to him that he can feel a faint heat spreading across his cheeks and the back of his neck at the question. He tries to conjure up the memory of what the most recent game release announcement he’d been excited about felt like, tries to root that feeling in this, but it's all wrong - nothing about the nervous, effervescent feeling of hearing new information about an upcoming release is echoed in the way talking about Karasuno coming to training camp settles deep into his belly, makes him smile at weird times.

Kuro blinks blankly at him, apparently surprised to have taken him by surprise, and they stare at each other like idiots for a few seconds before he laughs out loud, jostling his shoulder affectionately against his friend’s.

“It’s fine if you haven’t figured it out yet, Kenma.”

Kenma bristles at the implication that he’s behind Kuro on something, sliding smoothly away from the contact in a way that doesn’t outright reject it. “Would you cut that out? We’re going to be late if you keep messing around like that.”

“What, are you feeling fired up about practice this morning? That shorty get you all pumped?” Kuro anticipates Kenma’s dodge and moves fluidly in time with it, reaching up to tousle his friend’s hair.

“Not particularly.” Kenma knows Kuro well enough in turn to anticipate _that_ , and lightly slaps his hand away.

“You want to race?”

“Stop being stupid.”

Kenma hopes that Kuro will think the slight flush still painting his cheeks is from horsing around. His phone buzzes in his pocket again, and as they turn to begin their walk to practice, Kenma pulls it out to finally humor Shouyou with a reply. He’s surprised to catch himself smiling before he even opens the message, a moment of horrible self-realization which instantly sinks his stomach with how stupid he feels about it. Still, the moment passes as quickly as it arrived, and he sends off a reply as he walks, listening to Kuro humming a popular video game jingle from a few paces ahead.

Later, at home in bed, he thinks about the whole conversation again, and wonders in spite of himself what kind of face he’d been making to set Kuro as obnoxious as he’d been - after all, his friend loves to tease people, but he doesn’t generally make something out of nothing. Almost without thinking about it, he rolls over and grabs his phone, texts Shouyou,

“are you excited? about the training trip.”

He feels a wash of embarrassment the second he presses send, and he contemplates putting the phone down across the room and going to bed, but the response comes faster than he’s even come to expect, in a barrage of texts.

“YEAH!! of course!!! its been ages since ive seen you and i want to hear about you guys’ qualifying matches!!”

And then a second later,

“you promised you’d toss to me remember”

Kenma doesn’t remember promising that.

“we’re definitely getting stronger so i wanna make that smug guy cry just a little bit. whats he look like frustrated. does he get frustrated? you can tell me”

And then, finally, a few seconds later,

“and you city folk can show us around or whatever!!! liek the skytree!! anyway im super excited. arent you!!!!”

This is different, Kenma thinks, from the anticipation of waiting for a new game. It’s less bubbly, and lower down, and calmer, and somehow it feels better, like it’s not going to go away eventually. He can’t help the soft smile spreading across his features as he admits to himself that probably his response rate to his friend has less to do with the tone and rate of Shouyou's messages and more to do with the identity of the sender. That he doesn't mind messaging, because it's fun when it's with him.

“Yeah,” he types back, surprised by his own reply, as well as by how unembarrassed he feels at it, “I’m looking forward to it, too.” Seeing you again.

Maybe he’ll even toss to him a few times outside of practice. It would be a pain, but somehow he can’t help thinking maybe it might be fun, if it was with Shouyou.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The joint training weekend at Fukurodani arrives surprisingly quickly after Tokyo Interhighs (although Shouyou and Kageyama-kun, always a pair to provide an upset, arrive late) and although he's never been one for intensive training, to say nothing of interacting with relative strangers, Kenma falls into an easy, focused pace with Karasuno there. If anything, the addition of their rival team adds something implacable to Nekoma's dynamic; during breaks Karasuno integrates seamlessly and amicably with the Tokyo-area schools, but in matches something about their monstrous but strangely mismatched lineup changes the atmosphere entirely, brings a crackling tension to even the most routine sets. Kenma doesn't spend much time paying attention to them outside of the norm, truthfully; he still has his hands full managing Lev. It's apparent, though, that they're still raw from their loss during the qualifying matches; Kenma thinks it feels like friends after a major fight, realizing they can't go back to how they were before and trying to feel out what their relationship will be like now.

Still, Kenma himself finds that the strange sense of anticipation he'd felt in the lead-up to the camp stays settled into his gut, shivers up his spine and forward into his throat when he watches Shouyou play, watches his growing discontent, watches him fight with Kageyama-kun, watches him try to steal the ball from the ace, watches him get pulled out of the matches. Right now Shouyou's kind of just an idiot, Kenma thinks, with no grasp of the basics and almost worse form than Lev. He still can't help but anticipate, thinking, it's possible that if Shouyou figures this out, he might turn out to be a bigger challenge than that setter of his.

In the end Kenma plays his own matches, keeps his own tempo up, watches through the corner of his eye as Shouyou stands on the sidelines, fist clenching and unclenching unconsciously, over and over, expression unsatisfied. He wants to jump, Kenma knows, he wants to see the view from the top, but there's nothing to say about it beyond that, and he has no idea what Shouyou should do to achieve that goal and get better, and it's not the kind of thing he needs to tell his teammates, anyway. Karasuno heads back to Miyagi prefecture on the afternoon of the second day with only one victory in ten sets, unusually quiet.

After Nekoma's own wrap-up meeting, Lev bends down, brings his face close to Kenma, asks,

"Is Karasuno always like that? They were kind of all over the place, weren't they?"

"Mmm... kind of?" Kenma stands up, shrugging Lev away. "They tend to be kind of hard to predict, I guess, and weirdly high-tempo?" Troublesome, he means to say. Like you, he means to say. But he doesn't, because that in and of itself would be more trouble than it's worth.

"Do you really have any room to criticize others for being all over the place, Lev?" There's no force behind Yaku's comment, and the way he grins tiredly at Kenma underscores that. "If you're talking about Karasuno, though, they're definitely always like that," he laughs, comes over from across the room, slipping easily into the conversation. "Sort of weirdly off-kilter, but every now and then they pull off something that's really surprising?"

Kenma nods very slightly at Yaku's analysis, stretching his neck a bit. Karasuno's the polar opposite of Nekoma, he thinks; his team runs like a well-oiled machine, structured and practiced, deeply aware of what their individual parts are and how to work together. Karasuno is all brute strength and surprises, alternately too dangerous and too sloppy. Well, he amends, he supposes they aren't all that different in some regards - after all, Nekoma also has a ridiculous first year with no sense of timing, pacing, infrastructure.

"Surprising is probably the right word," Kenma grumbles, "It's surprising how a team that seems like it's just made up of geniuses and monsters can suck so bad so much of the time."

"Hey, hey," Yaku grins; his shoulder comes close to Kenma, as if he's going to jostle him, but he's too gentle to actually make contact. "As always, you're harsh even to your friends, huh?" Kenma shrugs, biting around a protest that it's true at any rate. "Still," Yaku continues, laughter still at the edge of his voice, "they've definitely changed a lot since the last time, though, huh? Especially that Hinata guy!" He grins at Kenma, nodding toward where he'd left his phone on the bench, and at that moment it buzzes with a message notification, as if aware it was being discussed.

Ignoring Lev's complaints ("What, is that it, are you just gonna drop out of our conversation? Did you not want to talk about Karasuno that much? Kenma-san!!"), Kenma bends easily and picks the phone up, clicks his screen on to view his notifications. It's Shouyou, because of course it is, because it's always Shouyou; as usual, Kenma supposes, he should be impressed with his new friend's sense of timing. Kuro has a few things left to do, so Kenma decides to head home on his own, bows out of the clubroom with a muttered "Good work today" to his teammates, leans against the gym building and clicks open Shouyou's message.

The first message is just a blurry photograph of what Kenma can barely identify as a highway, stretching empty out for ages into the twilight, zooming past the photographer. And then the messages come in a volley, clearly not waiting for a response, talking to themselves.

"sorry we didn't get to hang out that much!!!!"

"Im just tryign to figure ths thing w Kageyama out"

"and i guess you wre workin pretty hard with that new lev guy huh"

"I feel bad I said all this cool stuff last time and then I ended up just looking real lame"

"But were coming back soon I guess coach said so in the meantmime im gonna get stronger"

And then there's a pause in the messages, and Kenma assumes Shouyou's done so he starts to compose a reply, and when his phone buzzes again suddenly in his hand it startles him so badly that he almost drops it. He recovers, feeling embarrassed, and clicks open his most recent message.

"i just want to be able to fight too. from the top"

And there it is again, that same tingle up his spine as before, the same catch in his lungs, and he looks at the message and thinks to himself, ah, that's right, because it's Shouyou, and Shouyou is interesting.

"AH"

"I JUST REALIZED YOU DIDN'T TOSS TO ME ONCE"

"hey come on you promised didn't you whats with that you just tossed to that ridiculously tall guy the whole time"

Kenma can't help the tiny huff of a laugh that escapes him then, and he types back,

"Next time you should arrive on time, then."

"Messaging someone? That's kind of rare for you, isn't it?" He's been concentrating so hard on Shouyou's messages that he didn't hear people coming up on him; Coach Naoi smiles warmly at him, trailed by Kuro and Kai. Kuro grins knowingly and waves slightly at him; Kenma supposes their discussion must not have taken as long as he'd thought.

"Kenma's become pretty good friends with one of the middle blockers from Karasuno - Hinata-kun, was it?" Kenma scowls at Kuro, who absolutely knows what Shouyou's name is and who is just being a jerk for the fun of it.

"Ahh, that one? The --" Kenma knows Kai was about say 'the short one' based on the way he stops himself mid-sentence, corrects himself to, "-- middle blocker, the one with the wild hair, right?" The way Kuro grins back at his vice-captain indicates that he caught his slip as well, and his expression seems to say, might as well say it, it's not as if it's not a true assessment.

Shouyou's not even the shortest member of his team, Kenma thinks petulantly, although he is pretty short for a blocker.

"Oh, number ten?" The arrival of Head Coach Nekomata surprises Kenma once again, even though he knows it shouldn't, as there's no reason he wouldn't have been at the same meeting as the other coach. He instinctively puts his phone away, bows his head in greeting, feeling somehow as if he has something to hide.

"Ah, the --" even Coach Naoi catches himself about to comment on Shouyou's height, and Kenma thinks his friend would be having a conniption if he knew. _Yaku_ would be mad. He sighs deeply, knows that his protests would only spur Kuro on, and settles for shooting a tired look in Kuro's direction. "He was really struggling this weekend, wasn't he? Ramming into his teammate, and getting pulled out halfway - even that fight at the end with the Karasuno setter, that really surprised me!"

"Ah, but he's really the most interesting out of all of them, isn't he?" Coach Nekomata is responding to Coach Naoi's comment, but it's clear that he's addressing Kenma. He grins, the kind of grin he always directs at his pupils before making them go through a particularly hard set, and laughs, "I'm really looking forward to seeing where he goes from here."

And there, once again, Kenma feels his stomach flip, clutches a bit more tightly at his phone in his pocket. He tilts his head, hair pooling slightly down and over, and makes no effort to halt the half-smile spreading slowly across his features, matching the head coach.

"Me, too," he says, and he's surprised by how sincerely he means it. "I think so, too."

 

 

* * *

 

 

The two weeks leading up to the week-long joint training camp at Shinzen blend together in a stream of practice, games, and sleep, oppressive in the Tokyo summer heat. Kenma lays on top of his covers, plows through an action rpg he’d been looking forward to when it was announced but had taken five years to release and had gradually lost all but his most grudging interest, and is surprised by how much he finds himself thinking about Shouyou.

His friend’s messages have been unusually cryptic - talk of quicks and timing and various sound effects, things that seem like they should be about volleyball but somehow Kenma can’t quite manage to draw meaning out of. He doesn’t mention Kageyama-kun at all, a marked difference from his previous messages, but he also doesn’t seem to be worried, so Kenma also isn’t worried - apprehensive, perhaps, because Karasuno is always filled with troublesome surprises, but not worried.

Nekoma’s members pile onto the train toward Shinjuku station in the early hours of the morning, meet up with Fukurodani, and then all ride the same train toward Saitama. It’s probably a nuisance to everyone else on the train, Kenma thinks as he watches Kuro and Bokuto horse around in the seats next to him. Lev spots the empty seat on his other side from across the train, but before his long legs can maneuver over Akaashi has slid wordlessly into the empty seat, giving Kenma a friendly nod before plugging into his headphones, Lev’s protests drowned out. His underclassman settles into a seat in across from them, next to Kai, and Kenma slides down in his chair, ignores the anticipatory knot in his stomach, and replies to the most recent message from Shouyou.

As expected, Karasuno is all over the place again - if anything, they’re worse than they were before, full of mistakes - but there’s something about it that seems like it could work, to Kenma, if they could just get their acts together. In the meantime, he supposes they’re good for keeping down the number of penalty laps Nekoma has to run, and they’re a surprisingly easy team to be around; they keep Tora and Lev busy, for one thing, and they’re simple and easy to understand, and they’re friendly, and somehow their shared goal of a “battle of the trash heap”, however seemingly impossible, unites their teams in a strange and unspoken way.

More than anything, though, he hadn't anticipated how _easy_ it would be, being with Shouyou. Perhaps because of the long timeline and the relative emphasis on inter-team interaction between breaks, he finds that they’re spending a lot of time together. It's different than with Kuro; there's very little of the comfortable silence he shares with his childhood friend, and Shouyou is many things, but "easy-going" is not one of them, and he wants to play volleyball, like, _all the time_ , but more than anything Kenma finds that even though as always he cares a lot about what his friend thinks of him, it's easy enough to trace Shouyou's affection, and he can feel himself relax around him. Their long-distance friendship translates remarkably well into face-to-face interactions - or perhaps it isn't so remarkable after all, since they first became friends face-to-face. At any rate, it surprises Kenma; he's so used to Kuro as his standard for friendship that he's surprised to find that although Shouyou isn't particularly easygoing and in fact he's a lot of work to keep up with and occasionally he has to flee when Shouyou gets too insistent about extracurricular practice, Kenma doesn't mind at all.

Mostly Shouyou talks: about volleyball and about training and about his family and his friends at home and sometimes about nothing. Shouyou talks, pulling insistently on the corner of Kenma’s t-shirt, as if that’ll translate his words into a desire on Kenma’s part to toss him a few extra balls. Shouyou talks, and Kenma listens, and thinks about what he's said.

He collects information as if he's reading a strategy guide. Over the lunch break, he learns that Shouyou's hair is naturally wild, he can't catch a volleyball one-handed, and he has a younger sister named Natsu who's in elementary school. In breaks between sets: Shouyou played volleyball in middle school, but they didn't win a single game. He rides a bike over a mountain every morning to get to school, and that's where his idiotic stamina comes from. Lately he's been wondering if Kageyama would be more popular with girls if he wasn't such an idiot, but it's fine this way, because he has someone to receive tosses from. He’s been working with the old Coach Ukai at home, but really it’s been elementary schoolers who’ve been teaching him, and they all think he’s in middle school and that sucks. He's been through five pairs of sneakers this year. At dinner: Shouyou likes rice and eggs; he prefers them together but doesn't mind them separately. He's no good at video games, which doesn't surprise Kenma, but he likes watching other people play them, which does. After dinner, before Shouyou goes off to practice with Kageyama-kun and his new female manager: Shouyou's on really good terms with his teammates, particularly the aforementioned manager. He's surprisingly good at impressions. He doesn't mean to copy his sempai, but Kenma notices he does it unconsciously anyway. He can't control the volume of his laughter.

By the second day, Shouyou seems to have realized that they aren't really on equal footing, not yet; he isn't willing to put up with an unbalanced relationship, and he starts asking Kenma questions: about Nekoma and about Tokyo and about his family and about Kuro and games and sometimes about nothing. Shouyou asks, and Kenma stares down at his sneakers, feels the sweat rolling down his back, thinks, this is probably too much work for a club activity, but right when we get back to Tokyo that new game I’ve been waiting on is coming out, ignores Shouyou’s fingers snaking out and pulling gently on the corner of his shirt. Shouyou asks, and even though it's troublesome, somehow Kenma finds himself answering.

He yields information between practice matches and during breaks, in small, short bursts, like lowering himself bit by bit into a too-warm bath, getting used to it. He dyed his hair to avoid standing out, because before he looked too suspicious. His favorite genre is action adventure, and he has difficulty getting into games that are too story-driven, but he plays them anyway. He used to go to arcades, but then he got too good and people started standing around him and watching and he's never been able to muster the courage to go back in one since. He has two cats at home, but somehow he feels embarrassed about it, so he doesn't talk much about them, but he promises to send occasional photos to Shouyou - for Natsu, Shouyou clarifies, and it almost sounds legitimate. He's been through two pairs of sneakers this year, but it's troublesome to buy new ones, so he tends to wait until someone on the team points them out before he gives up on an old pair. He's only been to Tokyo Skytree once, and his mother made him ride to the top. He’s good at disappearing when people want him to practice late at night - he doesn’t tell Shouyou that, but his friend learns it anyway.

It's interesting, talking like this without worrying about how it will be taken, absorbing information in a kind of give-and-take, and he finds it easier to respond than in texts, his answers less trivial over time.

On the third day Shouyou explodes at Kageyama during a match, accuses him of doing a shoddy job. Kenma’s surprised by his insistent tone, but isn’t surprised when later that night Shouyou interrupts him in the middle of a boss battle, begging Kenma to toss to him.

“Did you have a fight?” Kenma asks, shaking off his friend’s grip on his sleeve. His teammates on Nekoma have been under the impression that Karasuno’s dynamic first year duo never stopped fighting, but Kenma can tell that isn’t the case - while they haven’t been talking to each other, it’s clear that they’ve figured out whatever was going on at Fukurodani. Besides, Kenma knows - it’s not like Shouyou really thinks of Kageyama-kun as a friend, but he _does_ consider him his all-important partner, enough to trust him this far, and enough to want to learn to fight on his own. Shouyou’s features settle into a confident smile as he retorts,

“Not really. Sort of. We’re fine now! Kageyama’s acting weird, but we’re fine. He’ll figure it out, because he’s amazing!” Kenma stares up at him, head tilted, hypothesis confirmed. He can’t deny that Kageyama-kun is amazing, but somehow that confidence from his partner is even more amazing, especially when that same person threw a minor temper tantrum over his performance less than six hours earlier.

“Good.” Kenma smiles, and he means it.

“Ah, but in the meantime he says he doesn’t want to practice with me, so toss to me a couple of times!”

“Practice is over,” Kenma sighs, heroically restraining an eyeroll, “and rest is an important part of physical maintenance, especially when you’re going as hard daily as we’ve been going.” Especially for you guys on Karasuno, he doesn’t add, since you’ve had to do basically every penalty this week.

He expects Shouyou to argue, but he doesn’t - instead he sighs for a moment, shifting back and forth on the heels of his feet, but then without prompting he sits down next to Kenma, inhales the night air in a deep breath.

“Yeah.” His sigh has a laugh behind it. “I guess I know. I just want to keep doing it, you know? Volleyball. I kind of hate stopping.” Of course you do, Kenma thinks, because you're that type. Because you love volleyball.

They’re quiet for a few minutes, longer than they’ve ever been quiet before, and it surprises Kenma how electric it feels, how much he finds himself wanting to talk.

"I don't know if I'll keep playing volleyball in college," Kenma can hear himself making the admission before he even realizes, and Shouyou turns and looks up at him with that strange, faraway glint he sometimes gets behind the eyes. Kenma’s never said this out loud, not even to Kuro, though he’s sure his best friend has to know, and he isn’t really sure why he’s saying this to Shouyou, to be honest. He supposes it’s just the next thing for him to say. "I mean, I'll keep going while I'm in high school, because it'll be a pain for everyone to have to get used to a new setter, but I don't know if I'll go to the same college as Kuro, and he's really the reason I've kept it up this long..." Shouyou blinks slowly, expression unexpectedly difficult to place, and Kenma hates the way his stomach flutters with - what, worry? Probably.

"Hmmm?" They're sitting on the curb, their shoulders lined up; Kenma is briefly struck by how strange it is to be slightly taller than someone. Shouyou is unusually quiet for a minute, stretching his legs further out and studying the dirt dusting over the toes of his sneakers, but when he meets Kenma's eyes again it's without any visible judgement. "I guess I never had anyone to play volleyball with before this, so I can't imagine not wanting to continue for as long as possible, you know?" The usual sunniness in his demeanor is absent entirely - and of course it is, Kenma realizes, of course Shouyou is serious about this, because Shouyou is always deadly serious when it comes to volleyball.

"I thought you played in middle school?" It’s comparatively cooler here in Saitama than in Tokyo, but it’s still stiflingly hot even at night, and Kenma can feel the sweat rolling down his neck and back even under his shirt, the heat sticking oppressively to his skin. His mouth is dry as he tries to imagine Shouyou without someone to play volleyball with, Shouyou without volleyball, Shouyou on his own. Even though the analytical side of his brain whispers that that explains a lot about why his friend's play style is so all over the place, why someone so stupidly strong relies on his setter like that, why he can't catch a ball with one hand, on a fundamental level he can't picture it, can't summon a hypothetical in which Shouyou didn't have a team, in which no one would toss to him.

"We went to one game," Shouyou shrugs, "but it was just a bunch of my friends I begged to come along so I could play. I practiced with the girls and neighborhood old ladies." And then he smiles widely, a thousand watts bright, and Kenma feels suddenly, fleetingly ashamed at the idea that even though he's never been all that interested in volleyball, he's always had someone to toss to if he wanted. "That's why I'll keep going forever, as long as Kageyama or whoever keeps tossing for me." He makes a thoughtful face, adding, "I mean, I'd like you to toss for me too, but Kageyama's not that smart, so I could probably get into the same university as him, or we could go pro straight out of high school, I guess..." He leans forward, in a stretch, as if shaking off the old memories. "That's why I've gotta get stronger! Be like the little giant, and become the ace, and support everyone - make everyone want to toss to me, you know?"

Kenma hums his assent quietly, looking up at the starry sky above them. It's well past time to turn in, but the camp is filled with the hum of people all around. In the background he can hear the sounds of late-night practicing, hears Bokuto and Kuro bantering back and forth, can vaguely pick out the female managers chatting about tomorrow's training menu. He can pick out the squeak of Lev's sneakers as he practices spiking, Yaku and Kai either offering him advice or chewing him out. He thinks he can pick out the sound of Shinzen and Ubugawa High's captains laughing, conferring over something private. He wonders what Kageyama-kun is doing, wonders why Shouyou isn't working with him at the moment.

He leans forward, carefully, hugging his legs, rests his cheek on his knees and looks up at his friend.

"Hey, Shouyou?" Camp around them is so noisy, too noisy, but his voice rings unfamiliar and uncertain in his ears, and he hates the way it catches a little bit on his friend's name. "D'you want me to toss to you a few times? If we can find an open court."

He asks as casually as he can manage, but there's nothing casual about the way his stomach flips with - what, exactly? - when Shouyou's grin splits even wider, eyes sparkling with anticipation. Shouyou's up and running to find a volleyball, and Kenma watches his back disappear into the gyms, slowly stands up and remembers how Shouyou'd promised - next time, we'll make you desperate. Next time, we'll win.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Camp ends as quickly as it began, but everyone is in full swing preparing for the Spring tournament; Kenma and Nekoma pass through their initial preliminary matches with ease, lucky not to be paired against Fukurodani right away. He can’t place the feeling that shivers up him when he gets the message from Shouyou that they’ve managed to skate through their matches with Ougiminami and Kakugawa, but it quickly dissipates into confusion when Shouyou starts forlornly messaging him nothing but images of some kind of fish.

“Is this some kind of joke"

"Idgi"

Shouyou only replies with a picture of a Pikachu and a series of increasingly distraught stickers. In any case, Kenma assumes someone is teasing him, because Shouyou mostly becomes this incomprehensible when he’s being made fun of.

“Is that a lucifer dogfish?” Lev asks, looking over his shoulder. Kenma doesn't ask him how he's able to identify that kind of thing from sight, because he doesn't want to know. And then, as if this isn’t an extremely bizarre conversation out of nowhere, “Do you think you could eat that?”

“They’re full of parasites, so it’d be better to hold off,” Yaku retorts from halfway across the room, and for some reason for the next two days all Nekoma talks about is fish, and what kind is the best to eat, and Kenma vows never to take a single one of them anywhere near an aquarium.

They have one more practice match with Karasuno and Fukurodani at the end of the month, and then their next scheduled visit isn’t until the beginning of October. After having seen their rival team so often over the summer, it’s strange to be without them, but as August slips into September the days after sending Karasuno back off to Miyagi prefecture begin to blend together. Kenma drifts from home to practice to school to home again, follows a few steps behind Kuro and watches as the sweat trickles slowly down the nape of his neck to the collar of his shirt, lays on top of the covers on his bed at night and tries to place the vague feeling of discontent sticking to him like the heat-haze. It’s a difficult mood to describe or even to pin down at all, which particularly frustrates him because he’s always taken pride in his own self-awareness; he’s always been a person to place other people’s moods, and developing one of his own that he can’t quite solve would be bad enough without Kuro occasionally shooting him questioning looks, halfway between a smile and pity.

"Guy cracks one moody glasses guy with motivation issues," Kenma mutters to his ceiling at two in the morning, grumpy and uncharitable from sleep that just won’t come, "and all of a sudden _he’s_ the one with preternatural people-reading skills."

He tries to manage and to compartmentalize, to chase down the source. He’s basically figured out Lev’s pace, or at least as much as any rational human could possibly be expected to. Volleyball in general is going well, truth be told - failure at Interhigh qualification if anything only strengthened the team as a cohesive unit, and their good performance at the training camp in combination with the experience that cross-team practice allowed has Nekoma running even more smoothly than before. He’s caught up on his backlog of games and has even managed to get a little ahead of his schedule. His grades are doing fine, and it isn't like he's had arguments with anyone in particular.

Actually, the end of joint practices has represented a return to normalcy, and everything that happened in the final days of July feels more unreal than anything else. There’s no reasonable cause, he thinks, to feel like everything is a little bit grayer, painted with unease, as if he’s left the house without something important but he can’t quite remember what it is.

For a while it really does seem like Kuro's going to let it go without saying anything, but as Kenma continues to drift around listlessly, melancholy settled over him like a sweat-sheen even as the weather turns cooler, he can tell that his friend's extensive patience is beginning to shift to something between worry and exasperation. He finally cracks after about two weeks; they're in Kenma's room after practice, and he looks up from his magazine and asks,

"Are you gonna tell me what's up, or are you just going to keep lying around moping like that until winter qualification matches?"

Kenma's so surprised by the question that he instantly pauses his game, as if on reflex, but it takes him a few seconds to look up at his friend. One of the reasons they've always worked well together is that while Kuro can be pushy about going out, and volleyball, and really everything, it's rare that he insists on talking about things if Kenma doesn't want to. He's always waited until Kenma himself broaches topics, which is why Kenma is so surprised to be asked point-blank. Feeling somewhat ashamed, he mutters,

"I'm not moping."

"Oh please, Kenma, you've been disgustingly gloomy ever since, like, the qualifying matches in August. I haven’t seen you this down since you forgot to preorder the first printing of Monster Quest Seventeen.”

“That’s not its name, and there are only ten of them,” Kenma grumbles, his heart not really in the retort.

“Anyway, the point is!” Kuro rolls his eyes, Kenma’s arguments rolling off of his back like water, “I don't know if you thought you were being subtle or what, but we're all worried about it - Tora asked me today if you're bad at dealing with seasonal change or something, and Kai’s worried that we’re putting too much pressure on you."

Kenma can feel a familiar mix of horror and shame at the idea that everyone has noticed, everyone has been looking at him, everyone thinks he's weird, and he looks back down at his game, hates the way he can feel the blood shuddering across his face, over his ears, down his neck. Kuro sighs, somewhere between exasperation and affection, and although Kenma can't see his face, his hand comes down to rest heavily on top of Kenma's head, warm and big.

"Look, it's not a problem. You're doing fine. No one's looking at you, or thinking you're weird, or anything like that." His friend's voice is soft, and he moves to join Kenma on the floor, a few centimeters’' space between them. Somehow Kenma feels his shoulders relax, letting go because Kuro knows better than to lie to try to make him feel better - if Kuro says it's fine, Kenma knows it's definitely fine. After a second, Kuro continues, "I just think maybe you'd feel better if you talked about it. If you wanted. I'd listen, you know?"

"I know." Kenma's answer is immediate and thoughtless, and he kind of regrets it for a split second, until he hears his friend chuckle in response. "I just don't know how to describe it." He puts his game down, fingers moving to fiddle absently with strands of carpet instead, still unable to look up. After a few seconds he realizes that Kuro is waiting for him to continue his thought, even though honestly he'd have been perfectly comfortable just to leave it unfinished, and he sighs heavily, feeling silly. "I just feel uneasy a lot lately, like I'm kind of dissatisfied? I don't know, it started after camp."

"Uneasy?" Kenma shrugs, feeling like he should stop talking even as Kuro encourages him to continue.

"Yeah, I don't know, I just keep feeling like I'm missing something important, you know, like I've forgotten my phone at school or something." He reaches up and scratches his head, trying to parse out how to explain what he means as best he can. "And it's at the strangest times, too, because normally I'm fine, but like during practice, I'll see Lev mess something up and think, he might actually be shittier than Shouyou, and then suddenly I'm like in a bad mood out of nowhere? Ah, I'm not mad at Lev, though!" He clarifies anxiously, gaze shooting up to make sure Kuro isn't misunderstanding him. Kuro's eyebrows are raised, but he doesn't seem to think Kenma's badmouthing Lev, so after a second Kenma returns his gaze to the carpet. "Or like, you'll make a joke, and I'll be like, ah, Shouyou'd find that funny, or..."

"'Shouyou, Shouyou, Shouyou.' What, isn't it just that you miss your new friend, Hinata-kun? You're bummed you can't talk to him in person as often anymore, huh?" Kuro's tone is teasing, as is the way he jostles Kenma's shoulder with his own, but Kenma jolts as if stung, freezes in place, feeling as if he's been caught somewhere he's not allowed to be.

He misses Shouyou. That's probably the case, huh. When he thinks logically about it, it makes total sense. It hasn't been as easy to transition back to long distance as it was to change from it; he feels like the gaps in their conversations are longer, even when the timestamps on his phone tell a different story, and anyway it feels emptier now, like something's missing without the way Shouyou can't control the volume of his laugh, the way he gets too worked up about things, the way he's constantly asking Kenma questions. Suddenly he realizes, _I want to see Shouyou_ , and he feels a sudden burst of relief, like when he's been trying to come up with a word for ages, and it's on the tip of his tongue but he can't manage to remember it, and then someone just says it as if it's the most natural thing.

"What?" Kuro's question surprises him out of his own thoughts. He turns up his face to meet his friend, wide-eyed and feeling sheepish and fully aware that his face is burning red-hot, and Kuro stares back at him, expression slipping from surprise to frustration. "You're kidding, right?" And then his best friend puts his face in his hands, shoulders shaking with mirth, and Kenma stares at him, mystified. "What, is that all it was? You just miss that shorty, so you spend three weeks acting like you might be dying?"

'Like you might be dying' is an overstatement, probably, Kenma thinks, but he doesn't have the heart to argue at the moment.

"We were all seriously worried, you know?! Inuoka was near tears, he thought you were dying."

"Don't laugh!" Kenma's blush only intensifies. He feels like he has stones in his stomach. "I didn't realize until you said it!" Now that it's been vocalized, the source of this nameless sick feeling, Kenma can't stop his complaints tumbling out in a rush. "I mean, I feel pretty stupid, you know? Thinking like, oh, it's the heat, or I need to change up my routine, or I'm getting sick of volleyball, or whatever; I've never felt like this before, so I've just been feeling namelessly frustrated like an idiot --" Kuro looks up at him as if he can't figure out if he's a moron or what, and asks,

"What do you mean you've never felt like this before? You're not some kind of robot, Kenma, you must've missed a person before."

"Who would I have missed?" Kenma blurts, starting to feel annoyed. "You've always been my only good friend, and it's not like there's any reason for us to be apart, is there?" It feels like the most obvious thing to Kenma, but it clearly catches Kuro off guard, and it's his turn to stare blankly for a few seconds. When his expression does change, it melts into a huge, affectionate grin.

"Talk about taking someone for granted, huh?" There's no edge to the complaint; Kuro sounds genuinely happy, the happiest Kenma's ever heard. "What's with that weirdly cute, self-centered response? I don't know if I should feel happy or embarrassed or what." Kuro's happiness is infectious, and Kenma finds himself smiling back, shoulders lighter than they've felt in days.

"It's true, though, isn't it?"

"Be that as it may!" Kuro continues to laugh for a little bit, longer than maybe is strictly necessary, and then the two of them slip easily into a silly, comfortable conversation about something trivial. Finally Kuro looks down at his cell phone, notices the late time. "Ahhh, my mom's gonna be mad if I miss dinner, I've got to go." He stands up, paying no mind to the magazines he's spread across the floor, reaches for his bag. "See you tomorrow."

"See you tomorrow." Kenma reaches for his game, unpauses it for a second and then immediately pauses again, looks up. "Hey, Kuro?"

His friend is halfway out the door, showing himself out. Kenma knows on the way out he'll dawdle, make small talk with Kenma's mom, maybe even play with the cats. He turns back, that inexplicable pleasure from before still ghosting across his face, and Kenma realizes suddenly that he's so fond of Kuro it's almost stupid.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks. For checking on me. And like, listening, and stuff."

Kuro grins and shakes his head, turns back around. "If you miss him so much, you should call him instead of just messaging." He gives a small wave, heading out. From the stairs he shouts, "I mean it, Kenma, figure it out, you know we'll all fall apart without you!"

It isn't true. Kenma knows this. There's no MVP in Nekoma, no matter what Lev or Tora would claim, because they all need each other to work. If they can't work without Kenma, then Kenma knows that in turn he couldn't have figured this out without them.

It's a strange thing, because he's never been one to get all fired up about teamwork and the power of friendship or all that. He's always thought that it's easiest not to make too many ties. Still, later when he calls and hears Shouyou's voice on the other line, chirping, "Kenma! Hey! I was just thinking how weird it was to not have heard your voice in so long," he thinks, maybe that’s not right, exactly. He feels a smile creeping up on him from somewhere he still can't trace, catches himself realizing for the first time that he's lucky to have so many nosy people at his back.

"Yeah, it's been strange, huh? To go from seeing each other so much to not again."

It's a statement, but somehow Kenma makes it sound like a question, seeking some sort of answer, as if reaching out in the dark. At this point he's talked to Shouyou a thousand times, but he still feels shy, somehow, like this is somehow something new.

Shouyou’s quiet for a beat - Kenma thinks he can hear him inhale, like the statement surprises him, which is weird because really, he’s just repeating what he’d said initially.

“Yeah, I don’t know - in terms of volleyball, I think it’s definitely a good thing, you know?” Kenma can feel the smile upturning one corner of Shouyou’s mouth, hears it dancing around the edges of his voice, and is surprised by how much he wishes he could see it, just to see if he’s right. “I mean, we really still need to work on getting our stuff together if we’re gonna wipe the smirks off you guys’ faces."

Kenma is fairly sure he doesn't smirk.

"And like, you guys are our rivals and all, and… you in particular!! I don’t need you around figuring out all of our secrets and stuff, you know?!”

Kenma doesn’t retort that it’s not like he goes around observing people like that on purpose, and it’s not like it’s some insidious superpower, and anyway, it’s not like figuring Shouyou and Kageyama-kun out is _hard_ , they’re both open books anyway, because honestly, even though it would feel good to say, even though it’s true, he still finds himself constantly baffled by Shouyou’s idiotically fast growth in a way he can’t quite adjust to, and he’d hate to have to eat his words someday.

“Still,” Shouyou is continuing even though Kenma’s only half listening, eyes drooping shut as he takes in the comfortable timbre of his friend’s voice, “If it’s not about volleyball, it really sucks, you know? Not being able to hang out.”

“If it’s not about volleyball?” Kenma feels his heartbeat humming, sleepily imagines he can feel himself sinking deeper into the bed. Does Shouyou have thoughts about anything other than volleyball? The thought had never occurred to him.

“Yeah, I mean. I like hanging out with you, you know? So it sucks that we don’t get to see each other for so long.” He hums thoughtfully, and Kenma thinks he can imagine the face he’s making on the other end, again wishes he could see and make sure. “Like, Tanaka-sempai will tell this really funny joke, and I’ll be like, ah, Kenma would’ve rolled his eyes at that, for sure, or like I’ll be like man, maybe Kenma and his weirdo-vision could tell me why Tsukishima can always predict my run-ups when we practice blocking or whatever, or like, we got McDonalds apple pies the other day and I was like, man, these are great, I wonder if Kenma likes them or if he’s more picky -- ah, that’s why I sent that really weird question about what kind of fancy apple pies they have in Tokyo, sorry!!” Shouyou doesn’t mean anything by his comments, but Kenma feels his face burning up anyway, buries his face in his pillow while listening to his friend and thinks, ah, that’s right, sometimes human relationships are _super embarrassing_ , that’s one of the myriad reasons he’s always avoided them when possible.

He suddenly remembers training camp, running in the hot summer sun, thinking, _this is too much effort for club activities_ and frantically chasing Yaku’s back anyway. Yeah, he supposes, this is probably a lot like that.

“Ah, but I like playing volleyball with you guys too!” Shouyou continues, voice bright. “You’re really different from us, and you’re fun to play with. And I still haven’t done it, right? For you.”

“Hm?”

“Made you think, oh, yeah, volleyball’s really fun.” Kenma can hear the sleep in his friend’s voice even as his own eyes grow heavy, wonders where Shouyou is, what he’s doing. It doesn’t sound like Kageyama-kun is there, so he must be home. He rolls onto his back and wonders if Shouyou’s also lying on his bed like this, wonders what his ceiling looks like. Shouyou’s a fidgeter, so Kenma assumes even if he’s lying down he’s doing something stupid like sticking his legs into the air. He feels a deep wave of affection, suddenly, inexplicably, and his eyes are hooded and sleepy, and when Shouyou speaks again it’s in a different tone entirely.

“I mean, I promised I’d make you desperate, right?”

Kenma’s eyes snap open. His mouth is dry, somehow. Something shudders low in his back, runs up his spine, leaves the hairs on the back of his neck standing straight up.

That’s right, he thinks. Shouyou promised. And of course he’s serious about it, because it’s about volleyball, and Shouyou is always deadly serious when it comes to volleyball.

“Kenma?” He’s been quiet too long; Shouyou’s voice on the other end is questioning. “You still there? You didn’t fall asleep, right?”

“Yeah,” he says.

“Sorry,” he says.

And then he can feel the sides of his mouth cracking into a smile, and he tries to bury it in his pillow, saying, muffled,

“I’m looking forward to it.”


	2. listened while I could

Nekoma goes harder in late September than they ever have before; their practices start early and run late, sets increase in number and in difficulty, and everyone’s tension is high. Kenma finds the whole experience tiring and frustrating, but he doesn't skip and he keeps at it.

His teammates are growing at a terrifying rate; Lev still sucks, but not as badly as he used to, for sure, Tora’s spikes have grown more powerful and precise, and Kenma continually walks in on Yaku and Fukunaga pressed close together, splitting headphones, watching a video of some pro team or another on Yaku's phone. Even Kuro, already a powerhouse, is evolving at a rate that alternately exhausts and confuses Kenma, running blocking practice until late and insisting on jogging even in the mornings and evenings, to and from the station, as if he has something to prove.

Kenma, for his part, doesn't notice any major or overwhelming changes happening to him in the way they’re happening to his flashier teammates, but over time he finds he's less exhausted after practice, he's faster on his feet, his tosses are more precise, he's able to dive farther and fall harder and get back up anyway. He never manages to find satisfaction in it, exactly, but he does catch himself noticing, as he sinks his aching muscles into a too-hot evening bath centimeter by agonizing centimeter, that he really is putting a lot of effort into this volleyball thing.

He continues to message back and forth with Shouyou during the day, surprised how much easier it is even compared to before. They describe their commutes to school, their lessons, the television programs they’re watching; Kenma becomes familiar with which programs are common between Tokyo and Miyagi and which are separate, as well as what Shouyou’s little sister likes to watch. When Shouyou’s having difficulty with a math problem, Kenma writes the process out and sends step-by-step photos of how to solve it, feeling silly. Shouyou doesn’t particularly do better on his next quiz, but he does follow Kenma’s steps, which is something of a miracle in and of itself. Shouyou spends an hour trying to describe a song that’s been playing over the radio in his local grocery store, and he sends seven or eight voice messages of tuneless humming before Kenma turns the volume up embarrassingly high, picks the song out of the background of the recordings, and sends Hinata a link to the song with “???” attached.

On the weekends they often talk on the phone at least for a little bit, and Kenma finds himself looking forward to the chance to hear his friend’s voice, embarrassed by how much he finds he has to say. They talk about everything and also about nothing; Kenma tells him about the current quests he’s on in whichever game he’s playing, which characters he’s focused on leveling, what systems are in place for character and class management, how to optimize grinding and whether or not he thinks it adds to or detracts from gameplay, voice breathy and maybe a little too fast. Shouyou gives play-by-plays of every practice and every match Karasuno plays; Kenma feels like he’d know the entirety of their practice menu, if Shouyou’s recaps weren’t seventy percent nonsense noises and editorializing about how cool his teammates are.

They talk about volleyball, and about television, and about games; when Shouyou re-tells a joke Nishinoya told the team earlier that day, Kenma finds himself wishing he could have been there, not necessarily for the joke, but to watch Shouyou respond. When Shouyou talks about something “totally crazy” that happened during practice, Kenma closes his eyes and tries to imagine what a game against Karasuno that wasn’t totally off-the-wall would be like, can’t muster the mental fortitude to picture it.

“I’m sure it wasn’t that crazy, comparatively,” he replies, lying. "You guys are always like that, right?" And then he listens to his friend complain about Nekoma's persistence, their flexible receives, their knack for playing a long, complicated game as if it's nothing, and Kenma can't help feeling something like pleasure.

Kenma feels like he and Shouyou message more and more during the day, but nighttime texts are undeniably rarer than before, which Kenma can only assume is because Karasuno is working just as hard and as long as they are. Suddenly free to play games again without any threat of distraction, Kenma takes up a browser game an online acquaintance recommended to him. The gimmick is that the game features permadeath; no checkpoints, no save points, just one mistake and the character is lost forever and there's nothing for it but to return to the beginning. He's not usually into permadeath or browser games, and he isn't particularly having fun, but he finds it strangely engrossing, and there's something about the hot rush of frustration he feels every time his character dies over something stupid and he has to start from the beginning that releases the tension in his back and shoulders, keeps him restarting into the late hours of the night even though he's not even sure he likes it.

When Karasuno comes to Tokyo one last time in early October it's clear that his hypothesis was correct; they're nothing like the mess they were at summer training camp, and while they're still rough around the edges, it's definitely in a more thoughtful, purposeful way than before, more like a characteristic of the team rather than the result of a lack of skill and practice. Nekoma still routinely wipes the floor with them, but it isn’t as easy as it used to be, either.

Karasuno’s dynamic first year duo in particular is evolving at a shocking rate, slowly becoming more and more able to reliably complete their ridiculous quick. Shouyou is genuinely improving at volleyball; his form is still all over the place, and at the end of the day he’s ninety percent instinct, but Kenma notices that he occasionally _sees_ things, trajectories and empty, unguarded spots. His skills are nothing like Kenma’s, of course; he barely even seems to acknowledge players as anything other than obstacles to barrel through, and he’s painfully easy to fool. Still, Kenma thinks, if it's not about people, if it's about the court itself, Shouyou is starting to get really perceptive - like an animal instinctively planning his fastest course to his prey.

It’s a pain, he thinks, but it’s fascinating, because he’s had Shouyou figured out since day one, but increasingly he feels as if there’s too much of an air of chaos around him to really be able to reliably predict his actions. In a way, he supposes, Shouyou’s incredibly simple, but somehow he still manages to surprise Kenma.

Shouyou’s complaining about the cool night air, getting ready to head back to Miyagi, but all Kenma can think about is the ache in his muscles, the ways his eyes seem involuntarily drawn to his friend on the court, the tension in his shoulders, and thinks about going home and playing that browser game he’s been into until he inevitably passes out or dies, thinks about the frustration of having to restart, thinks about how fast Shouyou’s grown. And then he looks at Shouyou, so gratified to put expressions and mannerisms and body language with his comments, finally, and says, almost without thinking, that lately he’s been thinking about having a match with Karasuno for real. It’s the kind of proclamation that would normally embarrass him, that he would never vocalize, but somehow because it’s Shouyou it feels like the most natural thing to say, and he wants to see his friend's reaction, whether or not it matches up with his expectations. When Shouyou doesn’t laugh but gives him that too-intense stare and agrees with a grin, Kenma can feel the tension and the ache shuddering out of him all at once in a heart-race.

Later, after they’ve seen Karasuno off and Nekoma and Fukurodani are cleaning up, Kuro sidles up to him, expression teasing - though maybe, Kenma thinks charitably, that’s just the way his face gets stuck when he and Bokuto have spent the afternoon and evening with Tsukishima-kun.

“You and the shorty seemed like you were having a pretty serious conversation earlier,” he begins, and his tone is joking, but Kenma knows him well enough to watch the slight distance he keeps between them, the way he bends down to bring their faces together, the concern ghosting around his voice, and he knows that Kuro is checking in on him. “You seemed kind of fired up. I mean, relatively. Fired up for you, I guess.” He reaches down and grabs a ball Kenma had been about to reach for, passes it to him languidly, posture casual. Kenma thinks, full of quiet affection, that his best friend should know better than to try to act normal when he’s worried. “Everything okay? You get into a fight?” The question surprises Kenma briefly, and that must show on his face, because Kuro’s expression immediately darkens slightly. “Hm, I guess that’s surprising in and of itself, though--”

“No,” Kenma shakes his head, lets out a laugh, or at least something that might pass for one. He’s vaguely aware of a humming energy in his veins, rolls his shoulders back and stretches his neck. “Not a fight.” He tosses the volleyball Kuro had passed him to Yaku; maybe it’s a result of all the practice they’ve been doing, but even though it’s a pretty far distance it makes it the whole way, and Yaku shouts his thanks from across the room. He looks up at Kuro through his lashes. His friend is completely still, waiting for Kenma to let him know what’s up, cautious. He worries too much. “I told him,” and again he can hear the smile creeping across his face, into his voice, “that I wanted to play the kind of game with him where there’s no resets.”

Kuro’s quiet for a second; Kenma listens instead to the sound of Akaashi quietly talking to Bokuto, of the teams chattering back and forth. Finally, his friend laughs, tone fond,

“You really like that little guy, huh?”

Kenma shrugs, smile splitting wider.

“Shouyou’s interesting. There’s always something new with him. He’s easy to figure out, but he’s surprisingly hard to get tired of.” Kuro leans down and picks up another ball, tosses it again to Kenma, up high.

“Always something new, huh. What about me - you tired of me after all this time?”

Kenma taps the ball with the tip of his fingers instinctively, all muscle memory, sends it back to his friend, a light rally.

“Don’t be stupid. No matter how good you get at volleyball, _you’re_ always the same, and that’s your strength. Thoroughly predictable. Totally different from Shouyou.”

Kuro laughs, catching the ball. “As usual, I don’t know if you’re insulting me or complimenting me.” Kenma opens his mouth, but Kuro cuts him off, closes the distance between them easily, throws an arm over his shoulder. “I know, I know, it’s a compliment, let me take it as a compliment. Still, you’re surprisingly forthright tonight. Karasuno makes you honest, huh?”

Kenma shrugs, nothing left to say. Kuro seems reassured that everything is alright, and the two of them finish cleaning, head into the clubroom to change.

They ride the train home together; Kenma can feel himself nodding off when Kuro nudges his shoulder with his own, says, “Actually, I’ve been thinking about it for a while, but that ‘instant game over’ thing - it’s the first time I’ve heard you talk in terms of video games in a while, isn’t it? You used to use those metaphors all the time.”

They have a transfer still coming up - they’ve been on this train for a while, but they still have a while to go. Kenma shrugs, sleepy and full-body tired, aching to be home already for a bath and bed.

“You don’t play video games that much, so I figured I should work on trying to explain things so you could understand them.” And then he amends, “You and the guys. On the team.”

Kuro laughs again, and Kenma thinks he’s been doing a lot of that this evening. Kuro laughs a lot, actually, he thinks, mind cloudy with exhaustion, and that’s nice, if sometimes kind of obnoxious. One of the few traits he shares with Shouyou. “What’s with that? I’ve spent enough time watching over your shoulder, I think I get the gist of it. Besides, just by looking at that shorty you can tell he doesn’t have the patience for games, so why use them for him?”

Shouyou doesn’t play video games, but he likes watching other people play them, Kenma thinks grumpily. Shouyou’s little sister Natsu _loves_ video games. She’s captured more Pokemon than Kenma has. Somehow he doesn’t want to share that with Kuro, though, knows it’s something only he knows, and so instead he says honestly,

“I don’t know. I just didn’t know how else to say it.” He glances sideways and up at his best friend, through the curtain of his hair. Prefectural matches are so soon. Even though he just said that Kuro never changes, he feels like the atmosphere around his friend is different lately, wonders if it’s just his imagination or if Kuro’s grown again recently. He seems bigger than usual, somehow. “I just felt like it was important. Like I had to tell him, before matches and everything.” He looks down at his feet, feeling unsure. “I just wanted to make sure I said it in a way he understood.”

Kuro’s hand is heavy and warm on his head; his fingers card gently through his hair as Kenma looks back up at him.

“I’m sure he got it, you know?”

Kenma smiles, and Kuro smiles back. “I do.”

The Tokyo evening scenery whizzes past them, all lights. Shouyou was right - it’s gotten colder, especially at night. Kenma still feels warm anyway, has felt warm since he made that ridiculous declaration earlier like it was the most natural thing, since Shouyou had said, _yeah, let’s do it, a game with no second chance_ , since Kuro had laughed and said, _you really like that little guy, huh?_ It’s strange, because he’s exhausted and it’s late and it’s so, so troublesome, but as he pulls out his phone, reads through Shouyou’s latest string of messages about the training match and about the trip home, he finds himself thinking he might actually be excited for practice in the morning.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Kenma can feel his pulse pounding in his ears when he gets the message from Shouyou that Karasuno has beaten Aoba Johsai, accompanied by a series of increasingly blurry photographs Kenma assumes the photographer couldn't quite manage to force himself to be still enough to take properly.

"Ah, Karasuno's captain looks kind of worse for wear," Kuro notes when Kenma reports the news to his teammates, shows them the photographs, and Kenma's surprised, because he hadn't even noticed, didn't manage to see anything beyond how in the final photograph, a group shot of Karasuno, the only one taken well (Kenma assumes someone else, probably a parent, took it), Shouyou is grinning like he's just found something he was always missing.

Beating Seijoh is a huge deal for Karasuno and Kenma knows it, but he also knows that tomorrow they’re up against an even worse opponent, and somehow that knowledge makes him fidgety, like he can feel his pulse throbbing through every muscle in his body. Lev comments, “Kenma-san, somehow your energy is really different today!” and it surprises Kenma because he hadn’t noticed it himself, but once it’s pointed out to him he can’t refute that he’s definitely in better form.

“Isn’t he just pumped about the news from Miyagi?” Kuro’s teasing rings through the gym, but there’s no ill intent to it. If anything, Kenma thinks looking around, it’s fired everyone else up too; he can see their smiles setting into determined grins, crouches getting slightly lower, jumps higher and more precise.

“If Karasuno beating its rivals is this good for the team,” Kuro comments tiredly to Kenma on the train ride home, smile blissful, “I hope they get all the way to the finals at the Spring Tournament.”

Kenma texts Shouyou that night, hair still wet from the bath,

"Kuro is always saying what a pain that group of powerhouses over on Shiratorizawa are, so don't get too mad or let them throw you off or anything"

And then he thinks about it, and sends in quick succession,

"If you keep going at this pace maybe something'll work out, though"

"Somehow."

Shouyou responds almost immediately with

"what's with that 'somehow!!'"

And Kenma once again can't help the smile that creeps across his face. After a while he continues,

"Anyway, good luck."

Shouyou doesn't respond - hopefully he's already fallen asleep. The next message he sends isn't until the evening of the following day; Kenma gets the notification during a break in evening practice, takes a deep breath that surprises him - he hadn't realized how nervous he was.

"Well?" When Kenma looks up practically the entire team has surrounded him, looking expectant, probably summoned by the sound of his phone vibrating. Even the coaches are nearby, and while they appear to be continuing their work as normal, Kenma can tell they're listening intently. If he didn't find everyone's attention so smothering, he supposes he'd be surprised by how invested everyone is in the outcome of Karasuno's match against Shiratorizawa. The message is a photo, so he has to unlock his screen to see it.

He can feel the corners of his mouth turning up as he turns the screen to face his teammates, displaying a photo of Shouyou flashing a 'v' for victory.

He's surprised how excited everyone is - how excited _he_ is - but he supposes in some ways it's to be expected; they’re united by the desire for a “Battle of the Trash Heap”, of course, but more than that, somewhere along the way Kenma feels like they’ve managed to become friends with each other. After a while Coach Naoi steps in, reminds them that they have their own matches to be worried about, and they return to practice, as keyed-up and in sync as they’ve ever been.

“You might have been joking before,” Kenma says to Kuro on their ride home, staring fixedly at his game, “about Karasuno and the Spring Tournament.” A ghost of a smile flickers across his face, fingers dancing determinedly across the buttons of his psp. “But if them beating Shiratorizawa makes our matches go as smoothly as today’s practice, it’d be nice if they took out Itachiyama and Sakusa next.”

Representative matches for the Tokyo metropolitan area take place a few weeks later than Miyagi prefecture's, so Kenma has the opportunity to mull over their rival’s victory. He finds a video of the Miyagi finals on the internet, and even though he’s only ever watched volleyball matches in passing, with Kuro, as something to kill time, he finds himself pouring over it, watching all of the members of Karasuno, figuring them out like he would a puzzle. He’s never had any interest in other people beyond avoiding their attention, but he hits replay over and over, eyes tracking carefully over Kageyama-kun’s body language right before they do their new quick.

On the train to and from school he races through game after game at a monstrous pace, more effortlessly successful than he’s been in years.

“Kenma-san, isn’t that your third game this week?” Lev notices after practice, comments as the team congregates outside of a convenience store. “Did you already beat the first two? That’s impressive, but kind of terrifying at the same time…”

“He does this sometimes,” Kuro explains, coming up beside Lev, looking over Kenma’s shoulder with a grin. Kenma looks back up at them impassively, then turns his gaze back to the screen. “Every now and then Kenma gets into a groove with games, and he gets unstoppable. Just starts taking them down, one after another, even if they’re things he’d been stuck on before.” It’s true; Kenma has already blown through the last five games that had previously stumped him, and he’s only one simple boss fight from beating his sixth. He figures he’ll have it destroyed tonight before bed, even with Shouyou messaging him.

“A groove, huh?” Kai has joined them, meat bun steaming in his hand. He grins and bites in delicately, chewing thoughtfully. “It’d be nice if it continued, huh?”

Kenma stares at the screen, feels like he can see all of the strategies he’d previously missed, like he can practically read the code, like some kind of predictable cliche sci-fi movie. He wonders if volleyball was this clear, if it came this naturally, if it worked the way he wanted, if he’d start to find it really fun.

He gets the chance to test it out in the coming weekend, as Nekoma participates in the Tokyo metropolitan area’s representative matches. It feels like everything's coming together; they breeze through their first three matches with no problem. Kenma’s always found Kuro’s thing about the blood and the brain and whatever incredibly embarrassing, but he really does feel like they’re all linked, somehow, like his teammates know what he wants them to do before he even tells them, like every time he needs someone to pass or spike they’re already there, waiting for him. It’s as if the game is being played in slow motion, like he can see three or four moves ahead.

He leaves his phone turned off for the whole weekend, doesn’t check to see if Shouyou’s left any messages, can’t risk anything knocking him out of his rhythm. He aches to talk to his friend, surprised by how much he’s come to enjoy recapping games to someone who loves hearing about anything related to volleyball, but he holds out, desperate for his streak to continue.

When he steps onto the court the day of their final match against Fukurodani he feels like every muscle in his body is thrumming, like he's lighter than air, like he can read every person on the court, like his brain is three steps ahead of him. From their pre-match huddle, he feels Kuro and Yaku’s hands pushing into his back from either side, feels the heat coming off of his teammates, looks up and meets their eyes. Beyond them the stadium is roaring, a mess of people all looking at them, but Kenma feels like all of that is far away, and he suddenly realizes, clear as crystal: they’re going to win this.

Kenma’s always thought the fatalism people express over losing is silly exaggeration at best, and in particular he’s never understood graduating students saying things like “there’s no next year for us third years.” Still, when Nekoma manages to beat Fukurodani, he watches through the corner of his vision as Akaashi bows his head at Bokuto deeper than Kenma has ever seen. Bokuto’s shaking his head, moving to pull Akaashi up. It’s strange because in spite of all of Bokuto’s flaws, how capricious and unreliable he is, how overwhelmingly obnoxious and troublesome, Kenma has always thought of him as a force of nature, unshakeable, something to dodge around rather than try to bend or move. It’s strange to watch his shoulders shaking, his fingers trembling on Akaashi’s shoulders, his voice inaudible even as Akaashi shakes his head, and Kenma turns away, suddenly struck with the feeling that he’s watching something he shouldn’t.

Kuro throws an arm around his shoulder, maneuvers him back toward the team. Nekoma throws itself en masse at him, respect for personal space forgotten in the heat of the moment, and he can’t even be annoyed, because while he still isn’t sure that he found the game fun, when he high-fives teammate after teammate there’s something electric about it, and Kenma feels like he’s on fire, like he can’t lose, like he’s finally hit the groove. When he gets a quiet moment he extracts himself from the group, finds his phone and turns it on, waits as nearly forty messages from Shouyou tumble in.

He feels silly taking a photo of himself, but he sends it to Shouyou anyway: a picture of his own hand, flashing a ‘v’ for victory. And then, before Shouyou can respond, he follows it up with,

“See you at the Spring Tournament.”

He clicks his screen off, rejoins his team. His hands are throbbing, still raw from toss after toss, volley after volley. He aches all over, and he’s more tired than he’s been in ages. Their match against Fukurodani was the hardest they’ve ever played, for certain, but somehow more than anything the sensation he remembers is the sting of his teammates’ palms slapping into his. He keeps reimagining the match, thinking about the things he could see, the things he missed. His phone vibrates wildly in his pocket over and over, and he thinks to himself - what will it be like when it’s Shouyou?

Anticipation creeps all at once up his spine, thrums in his ears. He feels like he’s close, so close, to figuring out something important, like if he can just play against Karasuno once, for real, he might be able to get it.

“What’s Hinata say?!” Inuoka sidles forcefully up to him, chin on his shoulder. He stretches his back, his shoulders, his neck, rolls Inuoka off gently.

“I’m not sure.” His phone vibrates insistently, like punctuation. “I haven’t looked since I told him.” Another vibration. He looks up at his teammate, half-smiling, feeling silly. “I’m just kind of waiting until he calms down, I guess.”

Later, when he’s home and getting ready for bed, he’s playing a game when he hears his phone ringing insistently, flashing Shouyou’s name. He picks up, aware that his voice is heavy with sleep.

“Shouyou?”

“Will you answer your messages already!!” Shouyou’s yelling, which is probably a nuisance to his family, if not his neighbors - and the moment he thinks it, Kenma can hear what he assumes is Natsu’s voice in the background, asking if everything is okay. “No, yeah, everything is fine, just -- look, I’m on the phone -- yeah, yeah, I’ll be quiet, so go to bed already!”

“Did you call me just for that?” Kenma doesn’t mean the complaint, really, feels the smile ghosting across his features.

“No, don’t hang up, just -- you beat Fukurodani? What was it like! How was it?”

“Mm.” Kenma rolls onto his back, puts his game console away, feels himself inching closer and closer to sleep. “I don’t know. They’re good? They’ve always been kind of obnoxiously strong. The team worked well together, so in that way it was a good --”

“No, but I mean,” and Kenma wonders if he’s imagining the slightly shy timbre to Shouyou’s voice when he asks, “I mean. Did you have fun?”

“I don’t know.” All he can do is answer honestly. “It was okay, honestly, but in a lot of ways it was pretty normal, except for the setting.” He thinks about it again - about making a dive and connecting, Bokuto’s head bowed, the way his hands sting even now. “That’s why.” And then suddenly he can’t help but think about the first match he played against Karasuno, about the way Shouyou smiled when it felt like they were shutting him out completely, because it was new and interesting and he felt he could overcome it, and he feels something hot and electric run through his veins. “We’ll see you at the Spring Tournament, right? I haven’t forgotten. Your promise, from back then.”

He can hear the grin in Shouyou’s voice when he says, “Of course!” wonders if this is what having a rival feels like. He’s never really seen the appeal before, it’s always seemed like too much work and way too much conflict, and he isn’t nearly competitive enough for all of that. As Shouyou forces him to give him a play-by-play of Nekoma’s last four matches, though, he can’t help thinking: like so many things, he doesn’t mind if it’s Shouyou, because Shouyou is interesting.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Kenma feels like he can see the final point Karasuno scores against Nekoma at the Spring Tournament during their fated “Battle of the Trash Heap" happen in slow motion, realizes what’s happened not when the score changes or when the auditorium erupts into screams, but rather when Shouyou realizes it. He watches as Shouyou watches the trajectory of the ball, as his face breaks into a disbelieving grin, as he turns to look at Kageyama, victory in his expression, and only then does Kenma feel his stomach drop, his vision go white for a split second, and he turns to find Kuro, knows that it’s over.

The actual practice of defeat is easy. The call is made; Kenma lines up, bows to Karasuno and to the crowd, doesn’t look up. On Karasuno’s side of the net it’s chaos - he vaguely feels like he should say something, can see the dim outline of Kuro shaking hands with Daichi-san, _knows_ he should say something to Shouyou, but there are too many people and it would be too troublesome, and he has a lot to think about. He knows he needs to talk to his teammates, knows that there’ll be a wrap-up from the coaches, but he needs a moment. The second that he can get away, that people begin to disperse, he wanders out of the main arena, into a hallway and over to the wall, jelly-limbed and still breathing hard. He sits down, pulls a towel over his head and starts to think about the events of the game, about what could be improved in the next match, even though when he thinks about it, it’s stupid - after all, there is no ‘next match’ now, not with this lineup.

“Hey.”

Kenma can instantly identify Kuro’s voice, even though he can’t see anything. He looks up, through a curtain of hair, and Kuro pushes the towel back, out of his face, and laughs quietly, that way he manages where he’s teasing without making fun, and it’s insanity to Kenma that his friend can manage to laugh right now. He’s disgusting and sweaty, and Kenma can see that even though Kuro’s trying to act normal there’s a tremble in his voice, something welling up behind his eyes from the second they make eye contact. He feels something low and sick and unfamiliar twist in his stomach, and he clenches and unclenches his hand as he’s paralyzed between the feeling that he needs to do something to support his friend and his inability to do so.

Kuro looks at him with so much affection it’s terrifying, like he can see right through him, offers Kenma his hand. Kenma takes it, and Kuro pulls him to his feet, pulls him in for a hug because Kuro always knows what he should or shouldn’t do, has always done what is needed, always ushers Kenma along for that one final step when he can’t make it on his own. Kenma buries his face in Kuro’s shaking shoulder, grips at his shirt, fingers trembling, listens to Kuro’s breath shudder wildly as he reins himself back under control, thinks, out of all of us, probably Kuro wanted it the most. To win. They’re out of the line of sight of both the team and the crowd, so they have a few moments, and Kenma stays completely still, unmoving, holding onto Kuro with all he’s got.

After a few minutes Kuro has pulled himself together, and he pulls away, pulling the edge of his jersey up to rub at his eyes. They've spent years together, but this expression, sheepish and embarrassed and grateful, is entirely new to Kenma. “Sorry. Thanks. Geez. Sorry.” Kenma shakes his head, lets go of his friend. He can’t manage a smile, even though he knows that’s what Kuro probably needs. Kuro smiles instead, weakly. “I mean, that’s not why I came looking for you. I wanted to say it before the moment passed and it got weird, you know? Good work out there today. You really gave it your all, right?”

Kenma shakes his head, pulls away. “No,” he pushes the words out of this throat, even though he’s spent so much time raising his voice, calling out, in the last three days that it hurts to say anything. “Sorry. Sorry. I wanted to apologize.” He feels light-headed, can’t make eye contact with his friend. Was apologizing always this scary? Not with Kuro, not ever. “I know we did everything we could, you know, but maybe -- like, if I’d been more invested earlier, or if I’d--”

“Don’t be stupid.” Kenma can tell his friend isn’t really annoyed, just tired, and Kuro’s hand reaches out, lays heavy on Kenma’s head. His hair is sticky with sweat, and he’s sure that Kuro’s making it look even worse, but his gaze remains locked on the floor. “We’ve never gotten this far before, right? All the muscle in the world and we couldn’t manage it. Man, _Fukurodani_ didn’t get this far, and you know how stupidly strong they are, how hard they work.” Kenma still doesn’t look up, but he knows that Kuro is shaking his head. “You’re our brains, you know? We couldn’t have done it without you.” Kenma stares fixedly at his shoes, unused to feeling so stirred up, so helpless, so angry, so disappointed, so frustrated.

He looks up sharply when Kuro plaintively says, “Hey,” scared of what he’ll see, but his friend is smiling more honestly than he’s ever seen.

“Anyway, you felt it, right? During this match.” His grin intensifies. “Like, playing Karasuno, I don’t know - on one hand, they really are a troublesome opponent - well,” he laughs self effacingly, “I guess they probably think the same thing of us.” It’s true, Kenma thinks. Shouyou said so, what feels like ages ago, before their match. “But I couldn’t help thinking anyway, like, man, I really love volleyball, you know?” The pressure on Kenma’s head gets slightly stronger, but it’s still gentle - like Kuro’s just trying to reaffirm their connection, more than anything else. “And like, you really - I dunno if I should say this? Don’t get weird or embarrassed or anything.”

Kenma swallows hard, curious, embarrassed already.

“But you looked like you were really having fun out there, you know? It’s the first time I think I’ve seen you like that, really enjoying yourself at volleyball.” Kuro’s voice is quieter than usual, almost shy, incredibly fond. “And that was really great. So even though it’s frustrating to have lost, I’m glad we got to play.”

Kenma doesn’t know what to say, what he can possibly say to all of that. He can’t deny it; he remembers during the match, seeing Shouyou run up to the net and jump so impossibly high, shouting to Yaku for follow-up and then watching the play shut down, as he’d envisioned, almost like clockwork, looking up to see Shouyou grinning in that uncomfortably intense way he does sometimes, some middle triangulation between frustration and pride and excitement. He remembers smiling like an idiot, at Shouyou’s face and at his own desperation and at the strange hysterical sensation he could feel bubbling up in his chest, worried he looked goofy but unable to care.

Yeah, he realizes. Yeah, it was incredibly fun. Maybe the most fun he’s had in ages. More fun than mobile games, or replaying old RPGs, or that permadeath browser game, or really anything.

It’s incredibly embarrassing, but somehow he makes himself face Kuro head-on, looks up to meet his eyes, tries to smile.

“Yeah.” But then he thinks about their loss, remembers the face Shouyou made when he watched that final ball touch the ground, hears the tremble in his own voice and hates the way he can feel his expression crumple. “But it sucks at the same time, you know? I mean.” He swallows hard, willing himself calm. “This is the last time we’ll get to play together, and all.”

Kenma watches Kuro’s expression carefully, refers to his years of experience with his inscrutable best friend, searches for colors of regret or frustration or anger or accusation. His face doesn’t move, but Kenma can feel Kuro’s fingers in his hair tense slightly, then relax. Now Kuro’ll tell me that it doesn’t mean it wasn’t fun, he thinks with a slight wince, looking down. He’ll say, I’m glad we got to play together, all this time. He’ll say, I just wish we could have won this one, maybe. He won’t accuse, and he’ll mean it, because Kuro is good at handling other people, Kuro can make them feel good, Kuro can help people get better when they’re able and to let go when they aren’t.

“I’ve been thinking this for a while,” Kuro says, dropping his hand finally from Kenma’s head, his voice startling Kenma out of his mental simulation. It sounds totally different from his prediction, more incredulous and frustrated rather than gentle and soothing, and Kenma looks up at his friend, eyes wide. “But I’m finally sure of it. We all talk about Kenma’s so smart, Kenma’s so good at reading people, whatever, but when it comes to the most important stuff, you’re kind of stupid, huh?”

Kenma knows on some level he needs to let his friend finish, but he begins to argue automatically, stopped only by the way Kuro’s arm snakes out and pulls him to his chest.

“Who’s the one who’s always like ‘it’s not like you die when you graduate’?” His friend’s voice is still frustrated around the edges, but it’s also so fond. “And anyway,” Kenma feels Kuro’s murmur more than he hears it, initially, “I’m glad you humored me by playing with me for all these years. I want to keep playing with you forever - in college, and once we graduate, and when we’re obnoxious old men, whenever, you know? It’s not like this is our last game or anything stupid like that.” Kenma thinks back to Akaashi bowing to Bokuto, how a week later when they ran into each other the two of them seemed to be back to normal, and realizes - that’s true. Maybe not as Nekoma, but there’s nothing keeping them from playing again. It won’t be the same, not really, but that doesn’t mean it’ll be any worse.

Kuro pulls away, meets Kenma’s eyes, more serious than Kenma’s seen him in ages.

“But don’t think our relationship is so weak it won’t survive without volleyball, you moron.”

Kenma doesn’t have a good response, so instead he smiles, thinks about the way his heart raced in that match with Karasuno, about how badly he wants to play against Shouyou again, right now, about how after their first match Shouyou had immediately asked for another.

“If you wanted to keep playing with me maybe you should have been dumber, because the entrance exam you’ve been preparing for seems like a pain.”

Kuro laughs, a huge belly laugh, and throws an arm around his shoulders, maneuvers him back toward the team. Kenma can feel tears welling up toward the back of his eyes, but he blinks them away, thinks about a future when he and Kuro can play on a team together again, and suddenly he knows, clear as crystal, like he knew they would beat Fukurodani, like he knew that Shouyou’s last point would be in, that they’ll be okay.

Later, on the way out, he realizes that his phone hasn’t rung in a while, that Shouyou’s being quiet. He assumes Karasuno is busy with post-victory events, so he texts quickly,

“Thanks for the game.”

His screen lights up with a call request from Shouyou almost immediately, so fast that it surprises him. He picks up, ignoring a conflicted feeling in his chest, trying to sound normal.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” Shouyou’s voice is strange, somehow - more downbeat than Kenma would have guessed, and he’s frustrated again not to be able to see him face-to-face, as if seeing him would help Kenma place this weird feeling at the back of his mind, stirring near his lungs. “Thanks to you too! I had a lot of fun.”

“Yeah,” Kenma says, smiling in spite of himself. “I could tell.”

There’s a silent moment in the conversation, an unusual break, and Kenma wonders if Shouyou’s tired from the match. Normally he’d be giving a play-by-play, all incomprehensible sound effects, but instead he seems to be waiting for something, an answer that doesn’t come.

“Are you there?” Kenma hears his voice rasp hideously, embarrassingly.

“Wow, you really sound awful,” Shouyou laughs finally, and Kenma grouses,

“Yeah, I don’t normally yell that much, even during a game.” You really made us frantic, he doesn’t add. It was fun, he doesn’t add. _I_ had fun, he doesn’t add. He knows he should, but he’s too nervous, and before he can manage, Kuro’s voice rings out from the center of the team up ahead, crisp in the cold winter air.

“Kenma, we’re heading out.”

“Ah, are you with the team right now?” the timbre of Shouyou’s voice changes, suddenly more normal, and Kenma can feel tension he didn’t know he was carrying in his shoulders loosen.

“Yeah, we’re getting onto a train, so I can’t really--”

“Yeah, of course!” Shouyou’s response is fast, almost too fast, and it surprises Kenma how much he doesn’t want to stop talking to him, how much he wants to talk about the game, because he’s never felt like that before, or at least not this desperately.

“Ah, but--” Kenma takes a deep breath, gathers his courage, and it’s incredible, because Shouyou is always charging forward, always filling gaps in conversations, but he seems to instinctively know when to wait, to let Kenma finish. “I do want to talk about the match. So you should keep messaging me. Just, you know, if you want to.”

Shouyou laughs, agrees, hangs up. In a few seconds Kenma gets a message from him.

“sry fopr calling”

“should have sent a message haha”

“you just seemed kind of upset after the match.”

Did he? Kenma can’t imagine what he looked like, what face he’d made before he’d been able to retreat, but he’s sure it was awful, and he suddenly feels so embarrassed he might die to have been seen like that at all. He takes deep breaths, reminds himself that if he’d looked that obviously bad his teammates would be all over him right now, that all eyes had been on Karasuno in that instant, that probably only Shouyou saw. He feels humiliated anyway, like he’s shown his friend something awful.

“so idk i wanted to hear your voice somehow”

“like to make sure we were okay”

Kenma laughs out loud, watches his breath rise up like smoke into the frigid air, the strange butterflies in his stomach he’s had since he first saw Shouyou’s name flash across his screen making him giddy; the rest of the team looks over at him, but for once he doesn’t find their stares oppressive. There’s a lot he knows he needs to say, but as Shouyou starts to talk about the match, about the cool stuff that his teammates on Nekoma had managed, back to normal, all he sends in response is,

“Yeah, we are. Okay.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The national media picks up on Karasuno’s victory at the spring tournament. At first Kenma is surprised to see photos of their rival team plastered all over volleyball magazines, mentions of Karasuno even in everyday media, but when he thinks calmly about it it makes a lot of sense. Volleyball’s had something of a boom recently, and Karasuno’s story is a romantic one, Kenma can see that - a small school from the boonies that used to be great, reviving its old legacy, even playing against its old rivals in its quest to reclaim its former glory. Karasuno is flashy and interesting, even though they don’t interview well - as long as the talking heads comment on footage of games and no one asks the actual players anything, they’re incredibly entertaining. That they’re from Tohoku, from Miyagi even, is icing on the cake, he thinks - of course the media is covering the story. How could they not?

While the Karasuno third-years, now graduates, and their incredibly flashy libero have gained a fair amount of attention, it’s the first-year blockers - the Tsukishima-Kageyama-Hinata combination - that have really captured the public’s imagination, and for a brief time, until the national interest turns to something else, Kenma finds that Shouyou is all anyone can talk about, that he’s plastered across television and in all of the volleyball magazines Kuro spreads across his bedroom floor.

“They really are into that shorty, huh?” Kuro asks one evening, sprawled across the sofa in Kenma’s house. He’s already finished exams, is just waiting for the results now, but he isn’t planning on leaving Tokyo, and Kenma has been struck by how normal everything has remained, really. Still, he’s been spending as much time with his friend as possible, aware that things will necessarily change when he returns to practices without him. The television is replaying one of Karasuno’s spring tournament matches - in fact, it’s almost certainly their match against Nekoma - but if Kenma and his friends show up, it’s only as out-of-focus silhouettes. The camera is fixed on Shouyou, determined to chase him across the court, slow-motion focusing in on his sharp-eyed gaze as he leaps into the air for a spike, in-studio commentators’ jaws dropped in awe as if this isn’t the eightieth time they’ve aired this particular clip in a week.

“Shouyou’s flashy, and he’s interesting, so he’s probably perfect for their needs.” Kenma shrugs, gaze avoiding the television. “Better them than us,” he sighs, shoving his feet deeper under the kotatsu, though if he’s honest he doesn’t really mean it. He’s been on edge since their defeat, at a loss without regular practices, feeling more like he did after summer training camp than he has in months. He’s not sure when he went from feeling like practices were a chore to desperate to get back onto the court, but when his phone buzzes from across the room he ignores it.

“Yeah, that first year demon combo really is something, huh?” Kuro rolls his eyes, tosses his most recent magazine onto the floor, sighs the sigh of someone who has watched himself in blurry background form too many times, has relived his most frustrating defeat over and over since the end of the Spring Tournament. “I guess we’ve known that since the beginning, though.”

Kenma hates the tension settling into his shoulders, the way his thumbs stutter a bit over the buttons on his game console, messing him up. It’s exactly what Shouyou wanted, he thinks, remembering back to his conversation with him during the summer training camp at Shinzen. To become someone that people rely on, feel interested in. To get everyone to look at him. To ensure that someone will toss to him. To solidify his foothold, his path to the view from the top.

If Shouyou is always as frustrated as Kenma feels right now, he thinks, scanning Kuro’s discarded magazine, reading the words ‘new small giant’ with a difficult feeling cold in his chest, it’s no mystery why he wanted so badly to play another round that first time they met. If this is what it’s like to lose when you really were desperate to win, Kenma thinks, no wonder Shouyou is so high-tension.

If learning to like volleyball this much means feeling this namelessly anxious most of the time, he thinks, he almost wishes Shouyou would have just left him alone, to play when he wanted and to go home and sleep when he was done.

Kuro makes an exasperated noise at the television, like he’s annoyed but without any real weight to it, and Kenma knows that they’re showing the final point against Nekoma. Kenma knows that Shouyou is leaping into the air, that he’s scanning the court, that he finds a weakness no degree of flexibility and adaptability is able to catch up with. Kenma knows every frame of the clip, knows that somehow through some miracle the camera doesn’t get him in the shot in spite of the fact that he dives for the ball. Kenma knows because he’s seen the footage what feels like a hundred times at this point, knows because he knows exactly what Shouyou did when he realized they’d won, because he couldn’t take his eyes off of him in that instant - the camera tracks his gaze, gleeful and proud and incredibly excited, over to Kageyama-kun.

And that’s the thing. The crux of the issue, really. Kenma notices behavior, and he notices patterns, and as over the course of the last several days as the Karasuno story has become national news, Kenma can’t escape the undeniable. Everyone is looking at Shouyou, and to an extent that’s exactly what Shouyou wanted, but it’s more than that. Increasingly over the last year, Kageyama-kun has begun looking more seriously at Shouyou, and Shouyou has been looking back.

Kuro flips the television off, making a pained noise, and Kenma stares down at the magazines scattered across the floor, follows the line of sight between Kageyama-kun and Shouyou in the group photos printed throughout, tries to ignore a dizzy, unfamiliar feeling settling into his gut.

“It’s not that I’m not happy for our friends at Karasuno,” Kuro grumbles, and Kenma knows that he means it from the self-effacing laugh tracing the edge of his friend’s voice, “but I won’t lie and say I’m not looking forward to when everyone finds something else to talk about.” Kuro’s started packing his things up, getting ready to go home for the night. Kenma turns his video game console off, frustrated and unsuccessful, discards it beside himself and lays backward onto the carpet, squeezing his eyes shut. “I’ve watched myself lose around four times this afternoon, and I’m excited to turn on the TV and see anything else instead.”

Kenma hums affirmatively, stands up, grabs his phone and house key and pulls on a coat and hat, ready to walk Kuro back to his house.

“Is it okay to ignore him? Our pint-sized national hero.” Kuro asks as Kenma’s phone vibrates again, tone joking. He reaches out, past Kenma, opens the door to the entranceway. The outside air is already frigid, even before they open the door. Kenma breezes easily by and slips his shoes on, calling to his mom that he’ll be back in just a few minutes. One of the cats walks by, summoned by the noise, but appears to quickly decide that nothing interesting is really going on. Kenma wonders at what point it became a given that anyone trying to contact him must be Shouyou, but he doesn’t mind it, not really.

“Yeah, I’ll answer him later, he’s probably just trying to find out if they’re playing that footage here too or just in Miyagi.”

Normally Kenma drags his feet, follows a few steps behind Kuro, but since the end of the spring tournament he’s started trying to keep his friend’s pace, line their shoulders up. The evening air is still cold; even though the spring tournament is over, it’s actually still winter, after all. Soon practice will restart, or at least the remaining players will meet up to regroup. There are small, area level tournaments to attend, and he’s not looking forward to dealing with a Fukurodani captained by Akaashi. They’ll need to start thinking about how to recruit first years come April, how best to maintain the flexibility and power they’ve built over the last few years. He wonders what it’ll be like, Tora and Lev and Inukai without Yaku and Kai and Kuro. At least Fukunaga and Shibayama are around, he thinks. At least Coach Nekomata is staying on, fired up by their near-win during the battle of the trash heap. I’ll have to work hard to keep things working like they should, he thinks.

“You feeling alright?” Kuro’s question comes out of nowhere, though Kenma supposes he _was_ kind of spacing out. “It’s not like you to get lost like that - something on your mind?”

Kenma thinks about deflecting the question, but instead he looks up at Kuro, buries his hands deep in his pockets and gives him a sheepish half-smile.

“I was thinking about practice.”

It’s only half-true; he’s caught up in thinking about losing, too, and about Shouyou, and the way everyone is looking at him, and how he’s been looking at Kageyama.The smile that creeps over his friend’s features is simultaneously subtle and overwhelming, though, and even if it’s only partially the case he’s glad he said it out loud.

Kuro lives close by, so they arrive fairly quickly. In the doorway Kuro gives him a pointed look as his phone vibrates again, laughs, “It’s not his fault we’ve had to watch them beat us so many times this last few weeks, so you should really answer, you know.”

Kenma shrugs, still chasing the same unplaceable feeling at the back of his chest, stands outside of his friend's door even after Kuro shuts it, waits until he hears his friend call a greeting out and his mom replies before turning away. He reads his backlog of messages on his walk home, chilly air stinging his cheeks, somewhere between gratified and sheepish that even in this mood, even Shouyou’s most offhand, pointless comments still seem to make him smile. He leaves his shoes in the entranceway, drops his coat and hat carelessly in the hallway and pads to the living room, steps over the magazines Kuro left all over the floor and heads for the couch, flipping the television back on.

The truth is, it’s not watching their defeat over and over that has him like this.

The cats are circling; one climbs onto the back of the couch, just above his head, and the other shimmies over to him, keeps their bodies separate but rests his chin on Kenma's leg. His gaze slips over to one of the magazines, to a picture of Shouyou and Kageyama. When either of them know photos are being taken, they’re both horrible, unnatural embarrassments, but occasionally, in candid shots, the energy between them really is visible.

The truth is, he realizes everyone is looking at Shouyou. That Kageyama is looking at Shouyou.

Kenma has never understood wanting to be the center of attention. It makes him sick just thinking about it, about his own face plastered all over everything, the laughter and judgements and comments of strangers. He’s spent his whole life avoiding people’s gaze.

Still, he realizes, he wishes they’d beaten Karasuno.

Still, he realizes, he wants to play again.

The television replays it again, that clip where Shouyou jumps. Kenma is transfixed every time he sees it, thinks he can see everything in his friend’s expression - joy, and peace, and exhilaration, and the knowledge, clear as crystal, that he’s going to spike the ball where it can’t be reached.

Kenma feels like he understands that expression now, finally. He also knows, as he covers his eyes with an arm and hates the way he can still see Shouyou’s expression burned into the backs of his eyelids: that's not the only thing he understands.

Everyone is looking at Shouyou, and Kageyama is looking at Shouyou, and Kenma can’t deny it anymore - he’s looking at Shouyou. Maybe he has been for a long time, maybe since their first match, maybe since before that. Not as a fellow player, not as a rival, not really. If he really works at it, he can almost convince himself he’s just confused himself, that he’s just not used to having friends like this, but he knows that isn’t the case, because this is nothing like how he feels about Yaku, about Kai, about Lev, about Kuro.

Shouyou has, against all odds, really gotten Kenma to like volleyball. To like the deep-down tired muscle ache after a long practice, and the way his team jokes around. To anticipate matches, and to look forward to the squeaking of sneakers, the roar of a crowd. To feel frustrated when beaten, when forced to leave the court, unable to play anymore. To regret not working harder. To want to get stronger. To want to do it again. But he realizes, surrounded on all sides by volleyball magazines, phone still vibrating insistently, that isn't the only thing he wants now.

He thinks about Shouyou practicing into the night because he didn’t have a team in middle school. About how many sneakers he’s been through that year. About how he remembers things that Kenma mentions in passing. About how he mimics people without realizing. About how he barrels forward without thinking, but he always seems to wait when Kenma needs him to wait. About how he’d promised: next time, we’ll make you desperate. About how badly Kenma had wanted to win, and how somehow even so, when he saw Shouyou’s face when he realized he’d won, he'd felt like his heart was going to leap out of his throat.

Kenma has spent his whole life avoiding other people’s gaze, the judgement of strangers who don't know anything about him, but he knows suddenly it would be different with Shouyou, because Shouyou isn't a stranger, because Shouyou knows him. He watches Shouyou’s face as he sees that he’s made the shot, watches him look over to Kageyama, and for the first time, he realizes that in that second he wishes Shouyou had looked at him instead.

Kenma thinks about it and realizes, feeling complicated, half nauseous and half relieved: volleyball isn't the only thing that he's kind of fallen in love with.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Kenma isn’t particularly good at dealing with others, has never been the most in touch with his feelings, but he knows perfectly well what this most recent revelation means, and he chases a sick feeling in the following weeks. He tries to act normal with his friends, returns to practice and to the team, steps out of the train in the morning and into the crisp air, alone, replies to Shouyou’s messages as if nothing is different.

On the one hand, he knows there are all sorts of reasons to clamp down on the feeling, to avoid it entirely, to cut it off at the source. It’s obvious that Shouyou has never thought of him in that way; he’s not sure if it’s even possible for his friend, truth be told. If anyone has his interest, it’s Kageyama-kun; after all, Kageyama-kun tosses to him, brought out his full potential, is his important partner. Kageyama-kun is the person he looked to when he realized that they won, Kenma thinks, and his chest constricts with something difficult and unpleasant.

Setting aside his own anxieties, however, Kenma knows that first and foremost the problem isn’t Kageyama. Shouyou is serious about volleyball, barely thinks about anything else. Kenma can imagine his response if he was ever confessed to - probably something along the lines of, _sorry, I’m like, **super** flattered, but right now I kind of just want to focus on volleyball_ \- and the image his mind conjures up of the uncomfortable look on his face, cheeks red but gaze straightforward, that monstrous glint behind the eyes that he gets sometimes, makes his heart sink and his stomach flip at the same time.

Anyway, Shouyou is a precious person to him; he’s interesting, and he makes Kenma smile at stupid times, has taught him anticipation and loss and longing and more than anything to love volleyball.

He knows that if Shouyou were to know the truth he wouldn’t think Kenma was gross or anything, because that isn’t what Shouyou’s like. Still, he knows that things would be different if he found out, that they’d both be conscious of it, that things would change.

He thinks to himself, trying to put distance between himself and the sleepy stranger standing next to him on the morning train, that he’s barely been able to keep up with the things that’ve already changed recently.

He thinks to himself, flipping through his backlog of messages, he’s not even really sure what any of this means - what “wanting to be looked at” really entails, what he wants concretely.

He thinks to himself, stepping into the gym for afternoon practice and relishing the noise of his teammates getting ready in a way he’d never thought possible, he doesn’t know if whatever he wants is really worth risking everything he’s gained up to this point.

On the other hand, he desperately wants to see Shouyou. Ever since the spring tournament he’s been wrapped up in a hard-to-pinpoint giddy feeling, tension high, complicated and desperate. He’s consumed with desires, unfamiliar and uncomfortable compared to his previous easy-going pace - he wants to play Karasuno again, to see if this time they could win, to see if he could do something to stop that combination, to break down Kageyama’s tosses and see Shouyou’s frustrated face, to feel that rush of victory he tasted before, his equivalent to the “view from the top.” He wants to talk to Shouyou face-to-face again, to listen to his laughter echo too-loud through the auditorium, to see what of his friend’s reactions match his expectations and what surprise him. On some level he wants to tell Shouyou everything, to see what he’d say, if his predictions are right.

On a base level he’s surprised by his other wants, twisting in his belly, still nameless but undeniably _there_.

He wants to maintain what they have now, but he wants more, too - more time, more conversation. More proximity. He wants Shouyou to hear what he has to say. He wants to see what face Shouyou makes, see the heat paint his face.

More than anything, he wants Shouyou to look at him. Wants to see Shouyou desperate.

The thought keeps him up at night, a hopeless greedy feeling twisting in his lungs, his stomach, through his limbs. He throws himself into practice and the team, hoping to distract himself, but with Kuro busy with university and his queue of games thoroughly depleted, it’s hard to find other things to focus on. His best friend can tell something is up, Kenma knows, because Kuro is weirdly insightful about that kind of thing. He doesn’t say anything, perhaps because he isn’t around as much, perhaps because he knows how anxious it would make Kenma, perhaps because he can tell that this is something Kenma needs to figure out on his own. Kenma thinks about it anyway, about how Kuro once said that when he gets fired up, he’s surprisingly unable to see anything but what he’s focused on, and wonders how long he's known. He spends a lot of time messaging with Shouyou, talking back and forth about changes in practice menus and team dynamics, wondering to himself if this is technically some perverse form of self-torture, struck by how _troublesome_ this all is, how he doesn’t mind anyway.

Winter melts into spring; the days get longer a bit at a time. He starts thinking about university, rides the train with his headphones in and switches mobile games for college exam prep apps. Nekoma plays a series of local matches, first for practice, then in the Tokyo area spring tournament. Sometimes on the weekends he goes out, with Kuro and with Bokuto and with Akaashi, to trade tips or just to chat. He keeps as busy as possible.

Somehow, probably because of their relative success during the spring tournament, they manage to recruit several new members, and Kenma can feel tension releasing from his shoulders and back as he begins to realize that they may be able, with some work, to recapture last year’s pace. Many of the now-graduates come back in the first few weeks of practice, help with initial training and development of practice menus.

“It looks like it’s going to work out, huh?” Yaku laughs after practice, around bites of hamburger, visiting from university. Kenma shrugs, half-smiles.

“Probably.” He stares down at his own fries, sips petulantly at his soda, thinks selfishly for a minute that it would be easier with the third-years still there, that managing the Tora-Lev-Inuoka trio is, for lack of a better comparison, like trying to corral cats. “I mean, Lev’s mostly worked out, and it’s hard to think of one of our new members being more difficult than him.” Yaku laughs around Lev’s protests, but Kenma knows without looking up that even Lev is probably smiling. He wonders if it’s like this for Shouyou, and remembers quietly their first summer training camp match, the feeling that Karasuno was readjusting, stretching, trying to fit into a new skin.

When one of Nekoma’s new recruits asks Kenma to show him how to do a dump toss, he ignores his urge to run away, sighs and says, “I’m only showing you this one time,” but the truth is he stays fifteen extra minutes, and when he finally returns to the club room Tora doesn’t say anything but grins and ruffles his hair. It’s obnoxious, but Kenma knows his teammate is holding back enough by not commenting on it, so he bears it.

"Lately you've had a kind of different aura, Kenma-san," Lev says one afternoon, and Kenma looks up at him, blinks, momentarily caught off-guard. "Like, you're still all, 'it's a pain, it's a pain'," he clarifies, doing a passably good impression, and Kenma thinks it really is strange how alike he and Shouyou are in some ways. "But even though you're still like that, it's not like you really seem to mind anymore, you know?"

When Kenma relates the conversation to Kuro that weekend, his friend grins knowingly, says, "I dunno, that might be true," and Kenma knows that in that case it probably is, because Kuro knows him well, and he wouldn't lie about this kind of thing. He quirks the corners of his mouth down anyway, grumbles that he doesn't know what either of them are talking about. Kuro laughs and doesn't reply, and Kenma fights the urge to kick his chair.

The point is, there’s a lot going on, and Kenma almost is able to convince himself that he’s put his inconvenient feelings about Shouyou aside entirely, that he’s confused himself somehow, that all of that was adrenaline and friendly affection and, geez, hormones or something. He hasn’t stopped _wanting_ , not really, but the feeling of need decreases with distance and with normalcy. The only thing that doesn’t manage to diminish is Kenma’s memory of Shouyou's face right at the moment of victory, up at the top of everything.

Coach Nekomata announces in mid-April that they’re going to head up to Miyagi at the end of Golden Week, that they’ve been invited back for a practice match with Karasuno. The sudden spectre of an actual rematch, of seeing Shouyou again in person, twists its way into Kenma’s gut. The fact that he can’t even manage to be normal about it, that his underclassmen comment that they’ve never seen Kenma so fired up, worries him - but then, Shouyou can’t see anything but volleyball, he thinks, stomach sinking even as he feels relief - so there’s no reason he’d notice anything is weird. When he gets home that evening he takes a cold shower, slips into the bath and thinks about an extremely technical adventure game he’s recently picked up again, about reclassing characters in his party, the pros and cons of switching from long-range to melee weapons in terms of speed versus level, anything but the way his desire to see Shouyou desperate during a match seems to have shifted simply to a desire to “see Shouyou desperate,” whatever that means.

He thinks about it, about doing some research and figuring out what exactly it _is_ that he wants, out of Shouyou, maybe in general, beyond that he “wants to play volleyball” and “wants to be looked at” and “wants to talk to him, like, all the time.” It’s hard, because sometimes he thinks that he doesn’t _want_ anything specific from his friend, that he just _likes_ him and wants to be together, but he thinks about the twisting, needy feeling in his stomach and knows he needs to be honest with himself if he’s going to come out of this even remotely okay.

He’s only on his first vaguely pornographic search term when his phone buzzes in his hand, announcing a message from his friend in Miyagi Prefecture. It scares him, and he drops his phone. It lands on his face, painfully, and all he can do is pray that it won’t leave a bruise or something. Suddenly irrationally convinced that Shouyou’s aware of what’s going on, that somehow he’s turned the camera on, he shuts the phone off, yells to his mom that he hadn’t quite managed to wash all of the shampoo out of his hair, gets back into the shower and stands under the frigid water until his heart stops stuttering panicked in his chest.

When he turns his phone back on, much later, he opens the string of messages from Shouyou:

“WE JUST HEARD YOURE COMING HERE!!!”

“REMATCH HUH FINALLY A REMATCH”

“wish we could go against kuroo-san again and i think nishinoya-sempai is bummed yaku-san is gone but IM SUPER PUMPED TO sEE UR NEW LINEUP”

“bummer you can only stay for a day!!”

“dont forget you promised to toss to me”

Kenma reads them quietly. He knows he has to compose a reply, is genuinely excited for the chance to play against Karasuno again, to see Shouyou again, but in the same breath, he remembers the way he’d been kind of freaked out about the images he’d found at first, but then he’d thought - if it was Shouyou, could I? - and his heart had stopped, all the air had left his lungs, something hot had shuddered down his spine. He puts his head in his hands and wills himself to calm down, to forget the way he’d pictured Shouyou’s face, skin flushed, breath heavy, eyes backlit with that glint that means he’s serious about something, to forget how his hand had drifted down almost automatically, without thinking, to palm at his dick.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Their reunion at Karasuno is technically the first time they’ve seen each other in person since their match at the spring tournament, Kenma realizes, and even though their last meeting ended in the way that it did, in a lot of ways it really does feel like old friends being reunited. He knows that there are things he needs to do: go greet the new Karasuno captain, update his new teammates on the new Karasuno lineup as he sees it, identify key players to those who don’t know them already. All of that’s a pain, though, and anyway he can feel himself lighting up the moment he sees Shouyou, can feel his stomach flip when his friend grins and bounds over to him, yelling his greetings.

Things are normal during the match - incredibly normal, in fact. It feels to Kenma almost like they’re picking up from where they left off in January; while things aren’t running as smoothly in Nekoma as they used to, the loss of the Karasuno third-years has similarly unbalanced their rival team, and they feel the same and different all at once. He certainly doesn’t feel as desperate as he did during the tournament, but that’s probably for the best; he isn’t like Shouyou, can’t run that high-energy all the time, and anyway, the purpose of practice is not to have to get worked up, isn’t it?

Kenma experiences the feeling of being three steps ahead again, calls out instructions and is gratified to see them work out. Tsukishima poses something of a challenge, more even than in the spring tournament - how much taller can that boy get? - but Kenma somehow feels like, perhaps too late, he can place where Shouyou’s likely to spike the ball. In combination with Lev’s height and Inuoka’s reaction time, they find they’re able to seal the Kageyama-Hinata combination remarkably effectively. Kenma watches Shouyou’s face light up, all seriousness, looking for holes in their defense at every turn, breath ragged but grin a mile wide, and thinks, this is sort of what I wanted, but it sort of isn’t, too.

Nekoma wins three of five matches before the coaches call it. The players are told they have an hour and a half of free time for dinner; the year before it had been up to the managers to arrange food, but leaving everything to Yachi alone seems unfair, and anyway it’s a good opportunity to allow the teams to mingle. Kenma thinks briefly about tagging along with the team in exploring Miyagi, but honestly he sees them enough as it is. When Shouyou bounds up to him and asks if he wants to run to the convenience store and pick up meat buns, he nods his assent, smiling softly.

The two of them step out of the gym and into the evening air, chatting easily about the matches, falling effortlessly into their same familiar rhythm. Spring is beginning to fade into summer once again; in Tokyo it’s starting to feel warm, but up in Miyagi the evening is still chilly, and Kenma shivers a little bit in his jersey. They aren’t talking about anything important, but Kenma finds that in spite of the way his heart stutters occasionally, the way he’s suddenly aware of the flip of Shouyou’s hair at the back of his neck, the way he’s careful to keep just a little distance between them, he still really _likes_ talking to Shouyou.

They buy meat buns - two apiece for themselves, and a bagful for their teammates - and head back toward the school. When they arrive back on campus they wander into an empty room; Shouyou hops onto a desk, a bun in each hand, and Kenma slumps into a chair, leans on an open desk. They continue their conversation over mouthfuls of meat bun, and Kenma thinks about the way Shouyou looked on the court, all tension, how he looks now, all relaxation, and thinks to himself again: this is sort of what I wanted, but it sort of isn’t, too.

He’s thinking on this point when he realizes that Shouyou’s stopped talking, is looking at him expectantly. He realizes he missed the last thing that his friend said, and asks sheepishly,

“Sorry, what?”

The edges of Shouyou’s mouth quirk downward - Kenma thinks it’s closer to his expression when Kageyama-kun tosses to someone else besides him than it is when a spike he wanted to make is blocked, and he briefly, desperately, is torn between thinking how much he likes Shouyou’s expressiveness and how much it probably gets him in trouble in matches.

“I asked if I could say something weird! About the spring tournament.” His voice is quieter than usual, sounds a little embarrassed, but he looks straight at Kenma, expression serious, and Kenma can feel his stomach drop, wills the blood he knows is creeping across his ears to just _stop, please_. “I know I asked you on the phone whether or not we were okay.” He’s so still, more still than Kenma has ever seen him, and Kenma knows, is almost relieved to realize: this has to be about volleyball, because Shouyou is always serious when it comes to volleyball. Shouyou laughs, softer than Kenma’s used to, “But when I called, I was honestly pretty worried.”

Shouyou breaks eye contact, stares down at his dangling feet, smiling slightly. Kenma knows if it had been him, it would have felt like he was looking away to try to escape or something, but it’s not that feeling with Shouyou. It’s more like he’s looking for something to sort his explanation out, something to offer some clarity. “It sounds stupid, but right after we won, I just remember you made this _face_.” Kenma feels shame wash over him, wonders when during their victory Shouyou’d looked at him, wonders again what kind of awful face he’d made. “And, uh, I dunno.” Shouyou’s voice is thoughtful, like he’s working out what he’s saying as it’s coming out, step by step, unsure. Kenma isn’t used to Shouyou using this kind of tone, thinking hard like this, and he wonders if he’s imagining the confusion in his friend’s voice. “This is super weird, so don’t freak out, okay? But like, I couldn’t stop thinking about your face at that moment, you know? Or, like. Can’t. Stop thinking about it?”

Kenma feels like all of the air has evacuated his lungs, like someone’s turned on fifty heaters in the room. He doesn’t know what he was expecting, but it wasn’t this. He knows his hands are shaking, so he grips the edges of his chair with all of his might, repeats over and over in his head, stop thinking about it. That isn’t what he means. It’s because it’s about volleyball, and Shouyou is always serious when it comes to volleyball.

“I’ve never regretted beating anyone, not ever,” Shouyou continues. “Because the only way to stay on the court is to keep winning.” He shrugs, and Kenma realizes he’s never seen Shouyou like this, never seen him with this kind of expression, never even imagined it. “But somehow, just that once, I just. Hm.” He looks up at Kenma, gaze straightforward, almost like he’s asking a question. “I guess I didn’t want you to make that face. Like, when I saw you, I just remember being all, that isn’t what I wanted.”

Kenma can’t breathe, can’t formulate a reply, can’t look away. He’s running mental laps trying to figure out what Shouyou’s saying, what he could possibly mean. It’s volleyball, and so it’s a given that Shouyou wants to win. What does he mean, that isn’t what he wanted?

After a second Shouyou’s face relaxes into a smile, and he rolls his shoulders back, stretching, like he’s shaking something off. “Aaah~! I feel better having said all that, you know?” He hops off of the desk, grabbing the bag of buns for his teammates. “We should head back, they’re probably wondering where we went.”

He’s heading for the door, and Kenma realizes suddenly: I didn’t say the most important thing.

In the back of his head he can’t help running simulations, thinking, this is going to be troublesome, so it’s better to quit while I’m ahead; thinking, Shouyou’s this kind of person, so he’ll probably react like this. Suddenly he realizes, clear-eyed: there’s no point in trying to anticipate Shouyou’s reactions. Shouyou is so, so simple, but Shouyou is also full of surprises, and that’s what makes him interesting.

He moves before he can speak, closes the distance between them, grabs the edge of his friend’s jersey. “Hey, Shouyou.” He’s surprised by how loud his voice is in the empty classroom. Shouyou turns to face him, expression surprised. He hates that his hands are still shaking. “About that. I just realized I didn’t tell you.”

He takes a deep, shuddering breath, aware that Shouyou is waiting for him, because even though Shouyou barrels through everything, somehow he knows when Kenma needs him to wait.

“About that match. The spring tournament.” He makes himself look up, face Shouyou directly, because Shouyou did the same for him. “I had fun.” He’s terrified, but somehow he finds himself smiling anyway, because it’s the truth. “I wish we’d won. It was totally different from normal. I got really desperate, especially toward the end. I’ve never been so frustrated to lose.” His smile is splitting wider, out of his control. “Just like you said.” He’s breathless. It feels like he’s run a marathon. Was looking straight at someone always this hard? He supposes it’s been ages since he’s tried, really. “Even so, it was really fun. I’m glad we got to play it. A match for real.” He shrugs, tightens his grip on Shouyou’s jersey, thinks about summer training camp, when they were first learning about one another, when Shouyou’d grab at the corner of his shirt as if the contact would be enough to get Kenma to relent and toss him the ball. “I want to do it again. This year, at Interhighs. And maybe at the Spring Tournament again. And maybe after that, in college or in the pros or whatever.”

He thinks about last summer, about Shouyou saying, _I just want to keep doing it, you know? Volleyball. I kind of hate stopping._

“So, like. Thanks.”

He can feel Shouyou’s gaze boring into him, watches his expression melt from confusion into a sunny, unbreakable grin. This is different from a rival declaration, or whatever you might call that promise from last summer, or even last October. He’s happier than he’s ever seen him, smile splitting his entire face, and suddenly Kenma realizes how incredibly embarrassed he is.

“Yeah.” Shouyou laughs, but Kenma can tell that he’s serious. “Cool.”

Kenma feels like their faces are incredibly close, is aware of Shouyou in a way he’s never been before, not on the court, not over the phone, not at camp with their shoulders lined up, not when he’s been alone and he thinks about that desperate expression he’s been searching for. Maybe it’s his imagination, but he feels like his friend moves a tiny bit closer, expression fond and grateful and so, so unfamiliar. His breath catches in his throat, and he thinks, don’t anticipate anything, because Shouyou is surprising.

After a second Shouyou blinks, suddenly seems to realize the situation they’re in. He turns beet red in an instant, jerks backward, voice stuttering, almost back to normal.

“Sorry!! Sorry!! I was getting carried away, that’s not --”

Kenma thinks, Shouyou’s simple, so it would still be possible at this point to go back, to have a normal friendship, to play this off. Kenma thinks, it would be easier to stay friends, because long-distance friendship is hard enough, this is troublesome enough. Kenma thinks about Kuro saying, sometimes when you get fired up you kind of become unable to see anything around you, and before he can think better of it he’s following Shouyou’s body with his own, closing the distance between them, crushing their mouths together.

It’s kind of strange, and he sort of gets the angle wrong, and Shouyou freezes, and he only makes contact for like, a second or two, and then he pulls away, realizes what he’s just done, how complicated he’s made everything, whispers “Oh, _no_.”

He can feel literally his entire body going red, shaking with embarrassment. He can feel Shouyou looking at him, and he puts his face in his hands, not moving, overcome with the amount of effort it’s taking him not to dive out of the nearest window and not stop running until he hits Tokyo.

“Hey, Kenma?”

Shouyou’s garbage at regulating his voice’s volume, he thinks, cranky. His friend’s voice is boyish, and it’s friendly, and he doesn’t think it could be mean, sound judgemental, if it tried, and Kenma resents how much he’s come to really like it over the last year. He doesn’t look up, not until his friend grabs his hands, pulls them down away from his face, bag of meat buns discarded nearby. There’s something dark behind Shouyou’s eyes, something serious, and Kenma thinks, mind buzzing, when he’s like this, it’s easy to forget he’s such an idiot.

“Sorry,” Kenma says. He feels like he’s burning up, like he’s got a fever, dizzy and anxious, mouth dry. He wants to go home, back to practice and video games and to Kuro and to his simple, everyday life. “The truth is, I can’t stop thinking about it either.” He can feel his pulse thrumming, beating even harder against Shouyou’s fingers on his wrists, and he’s suddenly terrified that Shouyou will know how scared he is. He doesn’t even want to think about what his face looks like. He knows it has to be awful. “The face you made. When you won.”

And then Shouyou’s pushing him backward, into the wall, fingers gripping and ungripping around his wrists, awkward and desperate, and Kenma has the smallest window of a second to inhale and close his eyes before he’s kissing him again.

Neither of them is particularly good at this. Kenma wonders briefly if he’d be upset to find out Shouyou was like, unexpectedly good at kissing or whatever. Probably, though maybe it would be alright, if it was Shouyou. It would admittedly be nice to have a sense that either of them really knew what to do in this situation, because Kenma’s life up until this moment has been volleyball and video games and cats and best friends with bedhead, observing and dodging personal connections, trying not to be seen, and he has honestly _zero_ idea what he’s doing. He doesn’t know what to do when Shouyou’s mouth presses into his, more enthusiasm than skill, when one of Shouyou’s hands drops from his wrist, unsure, hovering for a second before coming up to cup at Kenma’s jawline, smooths his hair away from his face.

It’s not what he expected, but it feels familiar anyway. He doesn’t know if this is what he was looking for, not really, not even now, but it must be closer, because that’s all that he can think of to explain the way he snakes his hand up to tangle in Shouyou’s hair, settles his other hand on the small of his back, parts his mouth softly to let him in, heart hammering with relief at being kissed back.

They kiss for a couple seconds, or maybe it’s minutes. Maybe it’s hours, maybe he’s missed his ride back to Tokyo, maybe at any minute both teams are going to come barrelling into the room. Honestly, the ratio of kissing to breathing that he’s doing feels like it’s probably kind of off, or maybe it’s just the way that Shouyou occasionally kind of moans into his mouth that has him feeling dizzy. He realizes suddenly that the other boy is standing on his tip-toes to reach him, and something unfamiliar shudders up his spine, spreads through his veins, electrifying. He grips at Shouyou’s shirt, desperate, legs jelly, trying to find something to hold onto, something to anchor him.

He feels Shouyou grin against his mouth, and it’s honestly the most incredible thing.

After a bit they separate, breathing hard, and Kenma leans down slightly, presses his forehead to Shouyou’s, wonders at the warmth in his chest, his pulse so hard it’s practically humming, and maybe it’s just because he feels like every cell in his body is working in overdrive, but he feels like he can feel Shouyou’s eyelashes on his cheek, fluttering wildly.

He can’t believe they’re so close, not after they’ve been so far apart for so long. It’s everything he wanted, but it’s also all too embarrassing at the same time. He shifts, trying to regain a sense of balance, reaches up and cards his hands through Shouyou’s hair, tracing where his hairline meets his neck. And then his hips stutter forward a bit, into the other boy’s, totally by accident, and Shouyou honest-to-God _yelps_ , jerks backward, only Kenma’s still holding onto him because, like, trying to anchor himself, and they both go toppling over, onto the floor, crashing, chairs and desks scattering out around them. Shouyou’s head hits the ground with a thunk, and Kenma only manages to avoid putting his whole weight directly into Shouyou’s solar plexus because he’s gotten _really_ good at falling safely at this point.

“Sorry.” He whispers the apology into Shouyou’s ear, feels something hot and strange and needy run up his neck when he feels the other boy full-body shudder. This is really, really great, he thinks, nose tickling in Shouyou’s hair, but it’s also _incredibly_ mortifying. He pushes himself up and off of Shouyou, onto his elbows and knees, forces his breathing back into an actual pattern, wills for his entire body to _calm down, already, will you just **calm down?!**_ “You okay?”

Shouyou groans, but he doesn’t seem to be concussed or anything, and there’s no blood anywhere, so it’s probably fine. And then he laughs and grins, reaches up and grabs clumsily at Kenma, hands fisting in his jersey, greedy in a way Kenma’s most embarrassing fantasies could never have conjured. He pulls Kenma’s mouth back down to meet his own, almost more like a judo throw than a romantic gesture, but then he sucks Kenma’s lower lip into his mouth and, god, _bites_ it, and for a second Kenma thinks, yeah, we’re fine, we’re more than fine.

But then, Kenma realizes, he’s basically straddling Shouyou at this point, and he’s pretty sure he's never been this hard in his entire _life_ , so maybe the situation is more dangerous than he’d initially realized.

Quietly, experimentally, Kenma brings his thigh up between Shouyou’s legs, angles his hips and grinds against the other boy.

Shouyou’s reaction is immediate and overblown.

“Whoa,” he practically yells, which causes Kenma’s hips to stutter against his dick, startled, and that clearly wasn’t Shouyou’s intent because he full-on _moans_ , slams his head backward against the floor again, and seriously, if he doesn’t stop doing that he is actually going to give himself a concussion.

“Sorry,” Kenma apologizes. “Not good?” It would suck if Shouyou wasn’t into it, honestly, because it was only for a second but as far as he’s concerned it was basically the best thing yet, and he’s practically _panting_ , desperate to do it again.

“No,” Shouyou’s expression is conflicted, but he meets Kenma’s gaze easily, answer honest. “It’s not that I didn’t like it. It’s not that I don’t want you to. Us to. Just--”

Kenma has always been a person of relatively few wants, has always been the kind who could give or take most things, has always been okay with doing or not doing things as other people tell him, because he’s never cared all that much, honestly. He’s never wanted anything more than he wants in this instant to cant his hips against Shouyou’s, slot their dicks together and rut against each other, to make him make that noise again. He resolves to hold still anyway. He holds their faces close because he can’t quite bear to separate, not after being apart for so long. The tips of their noses practically touch, he can see Shouyou’s mouth tremble slightly, but he doesn’t kiss him again, takes deep, shuddering breaths that sound obscene even to him, willing himself some self-control. He grips Shouyou’s hipbone and runs his thumb along the waistband of his shorts, digs his fingers hard into his hip and then traces the soft skin where hip meets belly.

Kenma’s trying to calm himself down, but it only seems to work Shouyou _up_ , and he shudders, breath panting, hisses, “Whoa. Whoa. Stop. Time out, time out, holy shit do you want me to come in my _pants_ \--” and then they both freeze, suddenly aware of the situation they’re in, turn matching shades of scarlet. He pulls his hand away, but Shouyou catches it with his own, fingers on his pulse, murmurs, “It’s not that I don’t want to, but we have, like, fifteen minutes left until people are gonna come looking for us, and I only have this one pair of shorts.”

Kenma pulls back onto his knees, sitting up, and Shouyou follows him. He can feel himself calming down, though he’s still going to have to do some pushups or something before he’s any less hard.

Shouyou’s eyes are dark, his lips bruised. He tightens his grip on Kenma’s wrist very slightly; not enough to be painful, just enough to reaffirm contact.

“It’s _really_ ,” he rasps, expression serious, “not that I don’t want to.”

Kenma feels like he’s just done a hundred penalties. Like when they beat Fukurodani. Like when he gets a perfect score in a game. Better than any of that. He leans forward, tracing the echoes of Shouyou’s pulse stuttering in his jugular vein with his smile.

“Okay,” he says. “We don’t have to this time,” he says. He’s disappointed, but he’s kind of relieved, too, because he already has so much to figure out.

“After Interhighs,” Shouyou murmurs into his ear. Kenma feels his lip ghost against his earlobe, grits his teeth and wills himself not to shudder. “We’ll have, like, a ton of time. They’ll be in Tokyo, so I’ll be there. Like, for more than a few hours. I can stay a few days, maybe, if my mom lets me.” He pulls back, faces Kenma head-on, and his expression is everything Kenma’s been looking for. “So you’ve got to make it to Interhighs.”

Kenma blinks at him for a few seconds, nods, smiles, “Yeah, you too.” The early summer night air is cool up here, he thinks. This is going to be so much extra work, he thinks. This is going to be so troublesome, he thinks. A year ago it would have been impossible to imagine himself choosing to do this, he thinks, and his free hand reaches out, catches Shouyou’s, intertwines their fingers. “So you better work on your form in the meantime, because for basically national champions, you're kind of all over the place.”

Shouyou grins the same way he did at the spring tournament. Like he’s won something important. Like a ball he spiked has gone through. Like he’s found it, the view from the top. Kenma's heart flutters; he likes seeing Shouyou frustrated, and angry, and happy, because Shouyou's interesting and surprising and captivating, but Shouyou like this, clear-eyed and victorious, is his favorite.

The other boy doesn't retort, just grips Kenma’s hand tighter, presses their foreheads together, laughs too loudly.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

When Nekoma wins at the summer Interhigh, Kenma thinks to himself - I didn’t know volleyball could be this fun. He feels his teammates piling onto him, a loud mess of sweaty bodies and flailing limbs, hears Kuro and Yaku and even Kai _howling_ from the stands, thinks: I didn’t know I could care about volleyball, about _anything _,__ this much. When he leaves the court he feels his phone vibrate in his bag, knows it’s a message from Shouyou, thinks, Lev was right for once, I guess. I really have changed, I guess. It’s a strange feeling, and maybe a little bittersweet, but he finds himself smiling anyway.


	3. and tried not to get caught in the boom badum, badum, badum, badum.

The day after Nekoma’s victory Kenma’s family has to go out of town. His mom is all apologies, _especially_ given the timing, but with some prodding she agrees to let him stay in Tokyo by himself - to wrap up, he says, and to talk to the coaches about moving forward. He tells her he wants to keep playing until the Spring Tournament, expects her to get mad, but he’s gratified by the way she smiles instead, laughs, “Tetsurou-kun has always had a lot of influence on you, after all.”

He tells her Kuro will be coming over, so that she shouldn’t worry. He’s lying, and he feels bad about it, but it feels like ages since Golden Week, since he’s seen Shouyou in person off-court. He thinks about the ways their relationship has stayed the same, volleyball and pointlessly chatting about nothing, and he thinks about the ways their relationship has changed: the way occasionally Shouyou’s voice on the phone gets husky right when he’s about to fall asleep, strange and needy and unfamiliar, the way his voice pools low in Kenma’s gut, the way his eyelashes felt fluttering against Kenma’s cheek.

Kenma’s at the train station near his house waiting for Shouyou to arrive when his phone buzzes; he almost drops it in his rush to answer, but the message is from Kuro.

“Your mom called to ask if we were having fun.”

He goes hot and then cold all at once. And then Kuro sends,

“I told her we were going to Tokyo Skytree.”

“I told her you didn’t want to because it made you nauseous, but you were doing it because I’m such a good friend and you miss seeing me so much.”

“I assume now isn’t a good time, so we’ll talk later.”

Kenma’s not sure whether to be grateful for the save or apprehensive about that final message, so he just sends,

“Thanks.”

And,

“I’ll tell you everything tomorrow.”

And then again,

“Seriously, thanks.”

Kuro sends a thumbs-up emoji and nothing else, and then Shouyou’s name pops up on his screen, calling him, and Kenma practically runs to the gate, forgets about everything else.

The summer sun is hanging high and bright in the sky, oppressive. Kenma can feel the sweat dripping down his neck, droplets settling in on his cheeks, almost tearlike. He holds his breath and scans the crowd exiting from the train platforms. He hears his friend before he sees him, voice echoing through the air and across the phone line simultaneously. Shouyou practically barrels through the turnstile, calling out his greetings, forgets entirely to hang up his phone. Kenma smiles softly and closes the call, buries his hands in his pockets, feeling shy. Shouyou stops a few breaths short of him, grins and laughs nervously.

"I feel like I've never seen you in normal clothes before."

Now that he mentions it, this is the first time he's ever seen Shouyou out of training clothes as well. Actually, if he thinks about it, this is the first time they've ever hung out in person outside of volleyball practice and training trips, and the thought makes him nervous and happy, somehow, like they're definitely something beyond volleyball now.

"Are you hungry? If you wanted to drop your stuff in a locker we could go get some food, and I was thinking if you wanted we could check out the Skytree --" he stops mid-sentence, halted by a pulling on the corner of his t-shirt. Shouyou is gripping it tightly, face scarlet.

"Maybe later," he says, voice embarrassed, and Kenma freezes, suddenly self-conscious. Shouyou looks up through his eyelashes and mumbles, "You said there's no one at your house right now, right?"

Kenma stares at him for a few seconds, dumbfounded. It's been around two months since they've started going out, if you can call being separated by three hundred and fifty kilometers literally hours after making out for the first time "going out." It's not like they haven't talked about it, because they have, and it's _definitely_ not like he hasn't thought about it, because he has, like, a _lot_. He just didn't expect it to be so soon, or so immediate, or for Shouyou to bring it up.

The other boy looks mortified, and like he might barf, kind of, but there's something needy and dark in his eyes, and Kenma thinks about the way he sounds over the phone, late at night, voice muffled and urgent. He can feel his face getting warm, doesn't even want to think about what kind of expression he's making. He doesn't trust his own voice, so he grabs Shouyou by the wrist, turns on his heel and heads back toward his house, dragging the other boy along, ignoring his yelps, hoping against hope he doesn't run into anyone he knows.

Kenma closes and locks the front door to his apartment, trembling like a leaf. He takes a few shuddering breaths, lets go of Shouyou’s arm, tries to calm himself down. “Okay.” He inhales deeply, turns to face the other boy, so embarrassed he can barely look at him, and says, again, “Okay.” His mouth is dry. Was talking always this hard? “Do you want to--”

“Yeah.” Shouyou answers before he can even finish the question, drops all of his belongings all over the entranceway and is _on_ him, body pressed flush against his, mouth searching greedily for Kenma's, pliant. Kenma groans, head thunking painfully back into the door, and Shouyou doesn't even _apologize_ , just smiles into his mouth, brings his thigh up between Kenma's legs and presses, and Kenma sees _stars_.

Somehow he manages to keep himself together long enough to remember that they’re still in the entranceway, murmurs something he knows is incomprehensible into the crook where Shouyou’s neck meets his shoulder, kicks his shoes off and backs up into the hallway. Shouyou starts to follow him, but he’s tied his shoelaces too tightly, and he has to bend down and untie them, muttering to himself, fingers fumbling desperately. When he stands back up, expression chagrined, Kenma smiles, reaches out and takes his hand, pulls him down the hallway and into his bedroom.

They tumble into the room and over toward his bed, slipping over books and magazines. Shouyou almost wipes out when he steps on a glossy-mega issue on Karasuno’s spring tournament victory. Kenma reaches out to catch him, half-off the bed himself, and thinks, it’s good there aren’t any games laying out, because they would be _destroyed_ right now. There are three handheld consoles on the bed, and he reaches for them gingerly, but Shouyou just shoves them to the side, plants his hand by Kenma’s hips and leans over to kiss him again.

Kenma pulls back after a minute, brain fuzzy, eyes heavy, heart a kilometer-a-minute, and says, again, “You’re sure? That you want to, you know. Whatever?”

He’s not really asking because he thinks Shouyou’s likely to have a change of heart - he’s been more than enthusiastic, really, and it’s not really like him to change his mind, once set, about anything. If he’s honest, he’s just asking because he wants to hear Shouyou say yes again.

“Yeah,” Shouyou says, and Kenma can’t get over it, how great it is to be in agreement. He watches Shouyou’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallows heavily, reaches out and places his palm at the other boy’s throat, heel of his hand pressed into his heartbeat, fingers carding into his hairline. Uncomfortable, he re-positions himself fully onto the bed, seated, with his legs hanging off. It isn’t ideal, and it’s hard to face Shouyou fully, but he’s sure they’ll figure a solution out. He pulls the other boy gently toward him, tries to pull him down with him, figures they can pick up where they left off the last time, but Shouyou pulls back and off him instead. Kenma looks at him, unsure, and Shouyou looks back, splays his hands across Kenma’s hips. “No, wait, I was thinking--” He makes a difficult face, but then grins at Kenma, expression resolved. “I wanna try it.” He drops to his knees, begins fumbling with Kenma’s pants, and what he’s about to do hits Kenma all at once, like a spike directly to the face.

“Oh no. Oh no.” He tries to wriggle backward, but the angle he’s sitting at is kind of weird, and Shouyou’s grip on his hip is surprisingly strong, and there’s no strength in any of his muscles right now, and oh, his pants are off, his underwear is around one foot, and he can’t believe that Shouyou managed that so quickly, can’t believe this is _happening_. “Wait, Shouyou, would you just -- wait, stop, I can’t --”

And then, incredibly, Shouyou freezes. His face is only centimeters away; Kenma can feel his breath on him, feels like it sends shockwaves up and down his, like, _everything_ , and he’s _incredibly_ hard. Shouyou’s eyes are dark, and serious, but he’s stopped moving.

“I wanted to try it,” he says, as if that’s an explanation, and maybe it is, sort of. “I’d kind of been thinking about it,” he says, eyes shifting momentarily to Kenma’s dick before returning back to his face. “Like. A lot,” he says, and heaves a tiny, almost huffy, sigh that does inappropriate things to the circuits in Kenma’s brain. “No good?” he asks, and his voice cracks a little bit, and even though Kenma feels like he’s drowning, even though all he can think about is _he wanted to try it_ and _he’s been thinking about it_ and _since when?!_ , Kenma realizes somehow that Shouyou’s waiting for him to tell him what to do.

There’s a beat of quiet, no noise beyond their own heavy breathing, and Kenma suddenly realizes he totally forgot to turn on the air conditioner, a decision he doesn’t much care about now but knows he’s likely to regret imminently. He licks his lips, forces himself to inhale, to focus even when his brain seems intent on finding anything else to think about beyond the desire at the back of Shouyou’s eyes, how close his lips are. “Sorry. That’s not what I mean.” Mortified, desperate, he fists his hands in the bed covers, barely manages to whisper, “Shouyou, please, please, I want you to, so--” and then Shouyou takes him into his mouth, and Kenma forgets words, volleyball, everything except for Shouyou’s lips, his tongue, the way his hair tickles the inside of Kenma’s thigh.

He doesn’t know what to do with his hands, but he hates clutching at the covers, hates the feeling that Shouyou’s doing all the work. He puts his hand on the other boy’s head, awkward, unsure what to do with himself. He can’t quite match his rhythm, pulls a little, by accident, but then Shouyou groans appreciatively, so Kenma cards his finger through his hair and does it again, on purpose this time.

It’s hot, and it’s strange, and it feels _incredible_ , even though it’s clear that Shouyou’s not used to it. Kenma wonders briefly where he learned to do this, any of it, tries not to thrust too much or anything, but then Shouyou does something with his tongue that surprises him and he pushes his head a little further down, by accident. Shouyou chokes just a bit, makes little noises in a way that is completely obscene and so, _so_ hot, and Kenma knows that he doesn’t care, that it’s all over, that he’s got to warn Shouyou.

He knows he says something, he _knows_ he does, but even when he scrabbles to push the other boy off of him he doesn’t move, stubborn, and then he’s coming apart into Shouyou’s mouth, breaths coming in sobs.

It takes him a second to stop seeing stars. He’s brought back to the land of the living by the sound of Shouyou coughing, and suddenly it all hits him at once, that Shouyou did _that_ and he even swallowed it, or at least _tried_ , because there’s some on his _face_ , and Kenma isn’t wearing _pants_ , and--

He panics, half leaping off the bed, choking out, “Oh no, Shouyou, tissues, I have--” but his legs decide that they’re not quite ready to work again, and Shouyou grabs his wrist, pulls him back down to the floor, onto him, and they crash into each other. He’s on his hands and knees, sitting against the other boy’s hips. Like during Golden Week, he thinks, and again wonders briefly, insanely, if it’s time to follow through on _that_. Shouyou grins at him the same way he does when he makes a point during a match, pulls his t-shirt up and wipes at his face. “Seriously, Shouyou, let me get--” and then Shouyou kisses him again, quickly, almost chastely, and Kenma gives up and stops trying to get away.

“Thanks,” Shouyou says from beneath him, and his voice is hoarse and abused, his lips swollen. Kenma blinks, breathless, thinking about how _obscene_ it all is. And then the other boy smiles, looks incredibly self-satisfied, says, “I didn’t even congratulate you. For winning the Interhigh.” It’s back again, that glint behind his eyes, and he laces his fingers behind Kenma’s neck, says, “It was a really incredible game,”

Kenma meets his gaze, caught off guard, thinks, I had fun. Thinks, since I met you I’ve started finding a lot more things fun, actually. Thinks, I just came in your mouth and now you’re talking about _volleyball?!_ Thinks, if you win again at the Spring tournament can I do that to _you_? Instead he looks down, embarrassed, whispers, “You’re hard.”

It’s Shouyou’s turn to be caught off guard, and his skin flames scarlet. He squirms, mutters, “Whose fault do you think that is, dumbo,” but he doesn’t look away, and Kenma is overcome by a sudden wave of affection.

“Sorry,” he whispers, climbs off of Shouyou. “I’ll take responsibility,” he whispers, leans over to mouth at his ear, reaches out and shoves his hand into the other boy’s pants.

Shouyou’s reaction is immediate, and he shudders into Kenma’s palm, but he also grapples at his wrist, saying, “Wait, wait, I wanted to--”

Kenma slows his movements but doesn’t stop them entirely, looks seriously at him and says, “You wanted to do it, right?” Shouyou looks mortified, and somehow even though he’s literally in the middle of giving a handjob - his first handjob - it’s Shouyou’s tiny affirming nod that he finds the most embarrassing. Apologetic, he explains, “I mean, like, it’s not like I don’t _want_ to, but I have to meet with everyone tomorrow morning, and I think we’re getting photos taken, and like, I’ve heard the first time can be, you know.” He licks his lips, torn, almost fully convinced to give in and do it anyway by the way Shouyou’s dick twitches against his fingers. “I’ve heard it can be hard.”

“I’m not gonna interfere with _practice_ ,” Shouyou’s ability to sound indignant while he’s practically fucking himself into Kenma’s hand, shallowly, almost unconsciously, is really endearing, if a little obnoxious. “N-no, I was gonna say, I did some - ah! - seriously, quit it for a second, just listen! - I did some research, and I was thinking we could try this thing I saw. If you were, like. If you wanted.”

“Research?” Given what Kenma’s research over the last few months has been like, he can only imagine.

“Y-yeah, so--” Shouyou hisses as Kenma pulls his hand away, rutting up into the lost pressure. He looks up, expression questioning, and Kenma feels shy now, all of a sudden, arguably much too late.

“Okay.” His face is burning up. He has no idea what’s coming, of course, what the other boy has in mind, but he supposes that’s par for the course, because Shouyou is full of surprises, and over the last year he’s found that it’s always better to run with him rather than push against him, in the end. “We can try it out. If you want.”

Shouyou’s expression is incredulous, then exuberant, all at once. He’s insanely hard, and somehow that’s working Kenma back up, too; whatever he’s planning, Kenma thinks, he’d better go ahead and do it quickly, because even if _Shouyou_ manages to last much longer, Kenma doesn’t know that _he_ will. “Just, look, if you want, get on, like, your hands and knees, or bend over the bed, or something, just - I’ll be right back, okay?”

Shouyou kisses him, briefly, like he’s trying to be persuasive, and then pads out into the hallway. Kenma can hear him scrabbling through his bags, thinks frustratedly: if you brought something with you, what was the point of abandoning your bags and slamming my head against the door like that? The mood only lasts a few moments, though and when he returns, Kenma’s resolved to roll with whatever he has in mind. He turns around, climbs up onto the bed, supporting himself on his hands and knees, feeling exposed and silly.

“I wouldn’t do this for anyone but you,” he mutters mutinously into the empty air in front of him. He hears Shouyou laugh behind him; the other boy leans forward, rolls Kenma’s shirt up and smiles into the skin on his back. He runs his hand up the inside of his thigh, biting at his hip; something feels unusual, though not in a bad way, and when he pulls his hands away the inside of Kenma’s legs are left strange and slick, coated in something. And then Shouyou’s hands are gripping his waist, and he’s maneuvering Kenma’s legs tighter together with a knee, and suddenly Kenma feels something slipping between his legs, and Shouyou is fucking into his thighs in slow strokes. Kenma thinks, this would probably have been easier if you’d just explained what you were doing, but he imagines Shouyou trying to stutter out something like ’I was looking at your thighs earlier, on the court, and I was thinking about how much I wanted to fuck them,’ and basically internally implodes, so maybe this way was better, actually.

It’s mostly strange for Kenma, but just based on the way Shouyou’s breath hitches, the way he scrabbles at Kenma’s hipbones, stuttering thrusts coming faster and faster, it must be insanely good for him. The noises Shouyou’s making are driving him crazy, and so is the hot friction between his thighs, and every now and then the tip of Shouyou’s dick catches his balls, sending shockwaves of pleasure through him. And then Shouyou reaches around and grabs his dick, jacks him off urgently, and Kenma collapses onto his elbows, rocks his hips backward to match Shouyou’s thrusts, trying to bite down gasps, overcome and desperate. They’re much too worked up to last any longer than a few minutes, and shortly after Kenma rides out his second orgasm of the afternoon he feels Shouyou jerk, then stiffen, collapsing with his full weight on Kenma.

It’s sticky and hot in Kenma’s room. Outside the humidity is stifling, and they forgot to turn on the air conditioning when they came in. It’s too hot to cling together, but Kenma throws Shouyou off of him, rolls over, throws an arm around Shouyou’s waist, entwines their legs. Shouyou’s pants are still around one of his ankles, he realizes, and they’re both still wearing their shirts and socks, and probably they’re _really_ going to need to do laundry tonight.

He’s surprised by how normal it feels. How nervous he isn’t. Normally, he thinks, his heartbeat would be uncontrollable - he’d be thinking about the embarrassing stuff he just did - and wow, was there a lot to ruminate over! - or worried about what he should say, or whatever. But he doesn’t feel that way at all. Mostly he feels tired, and comfortable, and satisfied. Maybe because it’s Shouyou.

“Oof.” Shouyou says. “That was. _Awesome_.”

Kenma laughs quietly in agreement, and doesn’t think about being embarrassed, or about cleaning up, or about dinner, or what he’s going to say to Kuro, or anything, watches Shouyou’s chest rise and fall, content.

Later that night, after they’ve cleaned up and taken showers and done laundry and gone to dinner and had a serious conversation regarding the feasibility of going to Tokyo Skytree that evening (they decide to go the following evening, when they’re likely to have more time to enjoy it), they’re hanging out in Kenma’s room. In some ways it feels like returning to the scene of the crime, he thinks, but they really did a good job cleaning it, and Shouyou is quietly laying on his bed, watching Kenma play a video game, and Kenma says suddenly,

“You know, people have been telling me recently how different I’ve been.” He looks back at Shouyou through the curtain of his hair, thoughtful. “With like, getting all fired up about volleyball, or like, dealing with other people, or taking on more work.” He smiles thoughtfully at the other boy. “I’ve been thinking, lately, that might be kind of because of you, maybe?” He leans his head back fully, onto the bed, face close to Shouyou’s. They’ve turned on the air conditioning in his room, and the hum provides a quiet backdrop to his thoughts. He doesn’t know why he’s saying this, not really, but lately he’s been saying a lot of things that before he would have kept to himself, and somehow with Shouyou it feels like a natural thing, to say it. “If I like, like volleyball now, or if I’m better at dealing with people - I think maybe it’s because I met you.”

Shouyou hums thoughtfully. He snakes a finger out and grabs the ends of Kenma’s hair, plays with them. Finally he smiles, simple, and sunny, and a mile wide.

“I don’t think that’s it.” He shrugs, “I mean, you said, ‘I’m looking forward to it,’ when I told you we’d win the next time, our first match, you remember?” Kenma does; he’s never forgotten. “So I think, maybe.” Shouyou’s grin ghosts across the edges of his voice, and Kenma can feel himself getting sleepy. “I think you were always like this, from the beginning. And maybe you just hadn’t figured it out yet.”

“Kuro says sometimes I’m dumb about really important stuff,” he concedes, and Shouyou laughs, rests his head on his elbows, chases sleep himself.

The air conditioner buzzes quietly, drowning out any noises from outside. Kenma knows he should turn it off before they sleep, but he reaches out for Shouyou’s hand, tangles their fingers together, closes his eyes, murmurs,

“If that’s the case, I’m glad, you know? That I met you. That I figured it out. That we get to play volleyball.”

Shouyou sighs, closer to sleep than awake, and Kenma thinks, smile ghosting over his face, I’m glad it was you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't write about how Hinata goes to Tanaka and Nishinoya for advice and at first they're taken aback but then they're like full-on DON'T WORRY, AS YOUR SENPAI WE WILL ENSURE THAT YOU'RE PREPARED and go out and buy SEVENTY GAY PORN MAGAZINES for him because this is Kenma POV and he can never know but it's important to note that this is a thing that happened. Thanks for reading.


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